Judging Freedom - Kyle Anzalone: IDF Says Hamas Will Not Be Defeated

Episode Date: February 19, 2024

Kyle Anzalone: IDF Says Hamas Will Not Be DefeatedSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Resolve to earn your degree in the new year in the Bay with WGU. With courses available online 24-7 and monthly start dates, WGU offers maximum flexibility so you can focus on your future. Learn more at wgu.edu. so so Hi, everyone. Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Monday, February 19th, 2024. Kyle Anzalone from antiwar.com joins us for his weekly time with us. Kyle, it's a pleasure, my dear friend. You wrote a very interesting piece on Friday entitled, Israeli military says Hamas will not, I thought I read it wrong,

will not be defeated in Gaza. Has the IDF, much to Prime Minister Netanyahu's chagrin, acknowledged that? Yes, Judge, I think so. That's what's going on here. I don't think Netanyahu is probably happy with this omission because it goes against what he is saying the Israeli goal in Gaza is and that is to eliminate Hamas. But there's this report, it's out on Israel Channel 12 News, and they got their hands on IDF report that concludes that Hamas will continue to exist either as what they call a terrorist group or a guerrilla group after the campaign in Gaza is over. And this means that the bottom line is the phrase they use is that Netanyahu will not be able to achieve what he says his main objective is. And of course, Judge, we knew this all along. You've been talking about it with guests on your show, I'm sure, since pretty much October 7th, that you can't defeat a group like Hamas with a mass military ind are driving Palestinians to want to take up arms resistance against Israel. And so Hamas will have no trouble replacing those soldiers and will continue to fight against Israel. And so the plan here isn't about wiping out Hamas. What Israel's

real intention is, is just to wipe out the Palestinian people in Gaza. To wipe out the Palestinian people in Gaza, meaning to commit genocide, to slaughter innocents so that mansions can be built on the beaches of Gaza on the Mediterranean Sea. Right, absolutely. And this isn't just speculation. This is what members of the Israeli government are openly talking about and celebrating at conferences in Jerusalem, or what the International Court of Justice concluded was plausibly going on, that there was a genocide in Gaza. It's clear that there's not going to be enough infrastructure in the Strip to support the 2.3 million Palestinians that live there. And Israel isn't going to let the Biden plan of having

all these Arab governments come together, normalize relations with Israel, and then rebuild Gaza is an absolute fantasy. And so if there's no infrastructure to support the people, they're going to have to leave. And that's if the Israeli military campaign doesn't kill them or just force them out of the Strip altogether. Do you think anybody takes President Biden and Secretary Blinken seriously when they talk about this two-state solution? I mean, it's almost inconceivable, A, with the Israeli government as it is made up or constituted now, and B, with the fear,

anxiety, and lust for revenge so prevalent amongst the Israeli populace in general. I'm not talking about Smotrich and Ben-Gavir and their people on the hard right. I'm talking about Israelis in general. No, Judge, I think it's just in a little bubble around Washington, D.C., where anybody believes this whatsoever. I don't even think they believe it in Tel Aviv, right? The Israeli government knows that their plan is never to allow a Palestinian state. And so they know that their main backer, the United States, and their plan for what they want to do after Gaza, Israel knows that they're not going to implement that. And so really, it's just a fantasy for Washington to allow them to,

you know, not just think they're supporting a genocide in Gaza, but give them some cover that, oh, you know, we're supporting something long term that's good for the Palestinian people. And who knows, it may just be, you know, the Biden administration may know that it's all, you know, what's really going on in Israel and that it's going to be a genocide. But they think that this is rhetoric enough to win over some Muslim voters in swing states like Michigan to help win the 2024 election. Here's President Biden, cut number eight, Chris, on the ceasefire. Thank you, Mr. President. Switching gears for a moment, have the Israelis

presented a credible evacuation plan for the nearly 1.5 million displaced Palestinians sheltering in Rafah, and what would the consequences be for Israel if they move ahead with a full-scale ground invasion without clear measures to protect civilians there? The President Well, first of all, I've had extensive conversations with the Prime Minister of Israel over the last several days, almost an hour each.

And I've made the case, and I feel very strongly about it, that there has to be a temporary ceasefire to get the prisoners out, to get the hostages out. Is Netanyahu ever going to agree to that? No, and Netanyahu has actually made that clear. After one of his calls with Joe Biden, he went on ads and posted that he's not going to bend to the demands of international dictates. And so he's openly saying that he's going to defy Washington demands. And it's only maybe maybe just Joe Biden, but I guess probably the White House and the halls of Congress where people believe that, you know, just asking Israel to do something without actually leveraging the aid that we asking Israel to do something without actually

leveraging the aid that we send Israel will get Tel Aviv to make any concessions whatsoever. In the meantime, you have another piece at antiwar.com saying the United States is going to continue to send bombs with which to slaughter the Palestinian people. That's right. Thousands of bombs the U.S. is planning to ship to Israel. I'm not sure, Judge, that they're going to have to wait until after Congress passes the additional aid or if Israel is going to have to pay for these weapons or if they'll come out of the $3.8 billion of military aid the U.S. sends to Israel every year. But as this is going on, as Biden is saying, oh, I'm having tough

conversations with Netanyahu, he's also sending him all the weapons that he needs to wipe out the Palestinians in Gaza. And so you can't really take Biden seriously that he's really putting pressure on Israel to do anything. Has a Palestinian human rights lawyer recently been arrested and confined without charges. Yes, so this happened in the West Bank, Judge, and the U.S. likes to put all the attention on the 100 or so Israelis that are still captive in Gaza. And certainly, you know, I would like for those people to be released and freed as well, hopefully as a part of a deal that allows the Palestinians to remain in Gaza and ends this conflict overall. But there's been thousands of Palestinians that have

been rounded up, not just in Gaza, but also in the West Bank and arrested and held as political prisoners, many of them tortured and with no charges whatsoever. They're just under administrative detention. And one of the people who advocated for those Palestinians, a Palestinian human rights lawyer, was herself arrested and thrown in an Israeli prison under administrative detention. It's almost cartoonish. A lot of times I think, when I try to explain this to people, they think I must be joking or lying because who would be that cartoonishly evil? But that's what the Israeli government is doing right now. Do you sense that Hezbollah is preparing for either an invasion of Israel or a massive resistance if Israel strikes first? Well, I'm sure Hezbollah is planning for a

massive military campaign, and they would be foolish not to. The Israelis have signaled time and time again that they are preparing a massive military invasion of southern Lebanon. So I would guess that Hezbollah is probably trying to establish defensive positions. I think they probably weigh the possibility of what they would attain by carrying out offensive operations into Israel versus what they would be able to do, just remain on the defensive and allowing the Israelis to take the offensive and probably lose more troops, weapons, and more expense on them that way. I think that's what Hezbollah is thinking, but it's really hard to tell, Judge. I do think, if possible, the leadership of Hezbollah would like to avoid a conflict,

but it seems increasingly unlikely that it's going to happen, given the size and the scale of the Israeli strikes in Lebanon in recent days. Do you know how badly the IDF has suffered in Gaza? I know they don't release these numbers, but there must be some indication of the numbers of soldiers, male and female, killed and injured. Do we know? Do we have any idea? Resolve to earn your degree in the new year in the Bay with WGU. WGU is an online accredited university that specializes in personalized learning with courses available 24-7 and monthly start dates. You can earn your degree on your schedule. You may even be able to graduate sooner than you think by demonstrating mastery of the material, you know, make 2025 the year you focus on your future.

Learn more at WGU.edu. At the end of last year, the Israeli government put out some figures, and it was 380 or so soldiers that had been killed in Gaza. About a fifth of those, by the way, were killed from friendly fire incidents or accidents. And so it's not all of these soldiers that are being killed just from confrontations with Hamas. And so since October 7th, that would put the number of IDF dead at over 500. I'm guessing that number is still going up. However, Israel has taken a lot of their troops out of Gaza and repositioned some along the northern border with Lebanon. And so maybe over the past few weeks or I guess since the start of the year, a month and a half now, the IDF casualties may be

somewhat lower in Israel just because they've had less troops operating in the area. I guess they're getting ready for some sort of an invasion into Lebanon if they now have three times the number of troops in northern Israel as they once had demolishing, destroying, and slaughtering in Gaza. Yeah, it does appear that way, Judge. And Israeli officials have said as much, that at some point they are going to invade and are looking at invading southern Lebanon. Switching gears a little bit, last week we all witnessed the spectacle of Western,

either heads of state or in our American case, the Vice President, foreign ministers meeting in Munich in some sort of a concerted effort to put pressure on Republicans in the House of Representatives to vote in favor of the aid package that the Senate passed, which includes, among other things, I think $61 billion for Ukraine. Some of this stuff was absurd. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, on the verge of tears, telling a story of a young Ukrainian soldier who recounts that every hour he looks at his mobile phone to see if the Republicans have voted in favor of the aid so far. We are told by your colleagues who come on air here that even if that $61 billion is signed into law by President Biden tomorrow, it'll be a year,

a year before the type of equipment that they need to really punch the Russians even arrives and they know how to use it. Question, do you think there will be a Ukrainian military or even a Ukrainian government remaining a year from now? Well, Judge, it's hard to predict the timeline depending on how much Western aid gets pumped into Ukraine and how long of a time they could continue to do that. With money, you could get people to do a lot of things. And there are still millions of Ukrainians. And so maybe Zelensky will seriously drop the conscription age to get more Ukrainians onto the front lines. And so I don't want to put a timeline on it, but the Ukrainians have certainly lost the

war. And it's just a matter of how long before they recognize that and how many Ukrainians have to die at this point. I think Russia is not interested in a major military offensive to take a lot of Ukrainian territory, but rather slowly take territory in a way that preserves their military, their soldiers, and just kind of slowly grind away at the Ukrainian army until it finally collapses. Chris, let's run the clip. I don't remember the number of President Biden complaining that the Republicans are out of town for two weeks.

And I think the reporter says to him, is there any way you can get funds there without waiting for Congress? I need to the Ukrainians without a supplemental from Congress. No, but it's about time they step up, don't you think? Instead of going on a two-week vacation. Two weeks and walking away. Two weeks. What are they thinking? My God, this is bizarre.

And it's just reinforcing all the concern and almost, I won't say panic, but real concern about the United States being a reliable ally. This is outrageous. from the Congress, the Secretary of State, in my opinion, fraudulently and criminally, signed a statement under oath swearing, and this happened twice, each for about $100 million, not billions yet, but still $100 million is a lot of money, was needed for American national security purposes. Now, obviously, that was fraud, because how is American national security purposes. Now, obviously, that was fraud, because how is American national security enhanced by the slaughter in Gaza? But it's interesting that they don't use that technique for Ukraine. I wonder why. Yeah, I'm not exactly sure why. I know the Pentagon has shipped so many weapons to Ukraine that American stockpiles of many key weapons are largely depleted. And so even if, you know,

the U.S. Senate or House now approved that $61 billion for Ukraine tomorrow, it would still take many months before weapons and probably a year before weapons that the Ukrainians need really start hitting the battlefield. And so what Biden's statement there says to me is that, you know, maybe the collapse of the Ukrainian military will come soon. He seems very desperate. If he needs the aid that bad, it must mean the Ukrainians are really depleting their weapons and maybe their, you know, soldiers are either refusing to fight or refusing to go up to the front lines without the weapons

they need to defend themselves. Nobody wants to be sent on a suicide mission. Switching gears to Alexei Navalny, here's President Biden cut number four, Chris, ranting against Vladimir Putin. You warned Vladimir Putin when you were in Geneva of devastating consequences if Navalny died in Russian custody. What consequences should he and Russia face? That was three years ago. In the meantime, they faced a hell of a lot of consequences. They've lost and or had wounded over 350,000 Russian soldiers. They've made them to a position where they've been subjected to great sanctions

across the board, and we're contemplating what else could be done. But what we were talking about at the time, there were no actions being taken against Russia. And look at all that's transpired since then. Do you think that Navalny was an intelligence asset of CIA and MI6? Well, I'm not sure if he was or he wasn't, although he certainly was doing a lot of things that they would like him to do in Russia. And I certainly think the Russian government believed that he was, and that's a part of the reason he died in a Russian prison. And certainly having a political prisoner and allowing Navalny to die in a Russian prison is a horrible thing to have happen. But at the same time, you know, the U.S. government being so self-righteous about this death,

while it's allowed so many others around the world from U.S. allies to have it happen, is absolutely appalling. And also, you know, we have particularly the journalists in Ukraine who died in the prison, Gonzalo Lira, who the U.S. could have gotten out of prison but chose to let die, and we don't issue a statement about him. But now the U.S. is looking at putting sanctions on Russia because of the death of a Russian dissident. you know looks like we're having trouble uh uh with the connection with car with kyle i think you're comparing the death of gonzalo lira an american citizen in a ukraine jail oh you froze for a minute go ahead i'll let you free i'll let you finish you're back yeah thank you no you were summarizing it well judge it was the death of g of Gazalo Lira, an American journalist in a Ukrainian

jail. And it seems the Biden administration is never interested in actually using the weight and the leverage they have. And so Ukraine is a government that we've given hundreds of billions of dollars in aid to. And so if we ask the Ukrainians to release one of our journalists from their prisons, they're fairly obliged to do so. And if we condition the aid, that would certainly get the Ukrainians to take that step. And with Israel, they have many Palestinian political prisoners. Biden could be pressuring Israel to agree to release the political prisoners to put pressure on Tel Aviv to accept a hostage deal with the Palestinians. But we don't see that happening because that would take actual political

courage from the White House. What the White House is willing to do is grandstand and say, oh, we're going to punish Russia because they allowed one of their political dissidents to die in prison, which again is a terrible thing to happen. But sanctioning Russia isn't going to change anything about Russia. And in fact, I think a lot of times the Western sanctions increases Russian nationalism and causes a rally around the flag effect and more support for Putin, not less. I think I've told you this story that when I interviewed a Russian businessman with a translator and he was in Moscow and I asked him, what do the Russian people think about Joe Biden when the question was translated for him? He had a big smile on

his face, and his answer will tell you why. He said, Judge, you may not believe it, but we have a phrase here in Moscow, particularly among those of us who are small business people, thank you, Joe Biden. The sanctions have developed Russian economic independence and actually increased Russian prosperity, secured their supply lines and gotten their banks away from entanglement with American banks. How's that, Joe Biden, for your so-called sanctions? Another journalist suffering terribly whose final appeal is tomorrow is Julian Assange. Now, Assange was indicted under the Trump administration. The charge is espionage. He's a publisher. He published information that was

given to him. The guy who gave it to him was sentenced to 45 years in jail and then after spending five of those 45 years bradley now known as chelsea manning president uh obama uh commuted the sentence but under the pentagon papers case the publisher is immune from criminal and civil liability for publishing matters of material interest to the public, no matter how the publisher got them. But you don't hear a word about this out of Biden. Biden with a phone call could stop Assange's sufferings. Right, absolutely. And that phone call or conversation only has to happen with Merrick Garland, his attorney general, because it's the

U.S. that's trying to extradite Julian Assange. Otherwise, he would be a free man at this point. He has no further punishments under U.K. law. They're just holding him for potential extradition this point to the U.S. And it's so important that you've been asking all of your guests and highlighting the Assange issue on your show, Judge, because there's not enough political pressure on the White House here. Biden ran on a return to normalcy and ending Trump's war against journalists. And the real Trump war against journalists was the war on Julian Assange. The indictment against Julian Assange, having him arrested in the UK, the plans and plotting to kidnap and kill Julian Assange by the CIA under the Trump administration were all a war on journalism that Biden could have ended,

but rather has just accelerated it as president. You know, Biden could stop the slaughter in Gaza with a phone call. Biden could stop the slaughter in Ukraine with a phone call. Biden could free Julian Assange with a phone call. He doesn't do this stuff. No, but he will put sanctions on the Russian economy, which accelerates de-dollarization and hurts the American economy, rallies countries like China, Russia, Iran together, and allows these countries to have, you know, extensive international trade.

And they're able to do it completely outside of the dollar in the U.S. world economic system. And so all this has been a massive blow to the U.S. world empire and a huge fumble on the part of the Biden administration. But that is really what has defined his foreign policy, is refusing to ask allies to make minor concessions. That helps his world narrative of we have allies that are democracies and make any kind of deals or any kind of diplomatic steps with any adversaries that could take down the world pressure and conflicts around the world. He has the U.S. embroiled in all these conflicts that we can't possibly continue to wage all at one time. There's not enough weapons to go around. And even if Congress

gives him an endless plain chance to wage war, eventually there's a logistical shortage of weapons that the White House has to address here. I want you to view, this is a little difficult to watch. I want you to view an argument made today by the Palestinian ambassador to the United Nations before the International Court of Justice, making a plea for the protection of basic he breaks down during his argument, it's fascinating fascinating but gut-w upholding international law, ending injustice and achieving a just and lasting peace, to guide us towards a future in which Palestinian children are treated as children. Not as demographic threat in which the identity of the group to which we belong

does not diminish the human rights to which we are all entitled. A future in which no Palestinian and no Israelis is killed. A future in which two states live side by side in peace and security. In which the group to which we belong, by virtue of our births, does not diminish the human rights to which we are all entitled. Now tell that to Itamar Ben-Gavir,

a member of the Israeli war cabinet and the rough equivalent of the head of their FBI. He's the head of domestic security, who said last week, Palestinian women and children that get too close to the border with Israel, they're on the Gaza side of the fence, deserve a bullet in their heads,

and he would instruct the Israeli police to deliver it. Where are we going with this? One side is tearfully begging for basic human rights to which everybody is entitled. The other side is suggesting behavior as cruel as what the Nazis visited upon the Jews. Yeah, that statement, and as you mentioned, the statements from Itmar Ben-Gavir are particularly powerful when you consider a particular op-ed that was written by an American doctor who traveled and worked in Gaza for a few days. It's running in the LA Times. It's a spotlight article today at antiwar.com. And what that doctor describes, he says at one

point, there's a handful of children between the ages of five and eight, who arrive at the hospital with single gunshot wounds to the head. They were all shot by a single sniper who, after the Israeli military evacuated and the civilians thought it was safe to travel, waited behind and shot several children. Now, you know, one of the reasons I think this is so significant is this is a clear crime of terrorism. To select out a family and shoot the young children shows that they are not only just trying to kill the Palestinians indiscriminately, but make the Palestinian people believe they cannot remain in Gaza or else their young children will be pitted off and killed at any time by snipers. I mean, what is going on in Israel and what is being endorsed and encouraged by the Israeli government and only able to continue because of the American government, because of what our government is doing is so horrific, Judge.

And the Palestinian delegation made some pretty powerful arguments at the ICJ today. I recommend everybody check out the one he did using maps explaining how Israel has slowly degraded and stolen the Palestinian land over the past 70 years. Here's that presentation. Allow me now. This is irrefutable. Allow me now to show you five maps. The first one is historic Palestine. This is the territory over which the Palestinian people should have been able to exercise their right to self-determination. Instead, the General Assembly recommended the partition of Palestine,

ignoring the will of our people as shown in the second map. ترمز المجتمع الجندي رأينا تقديم فلسطينية تنسى أهدافنا كما يظهر في الماكسات الثانية مع النقبة التي تتبعها أكثر من ثلاثة من أهدافنا تم إغلاقها بشكل مستمر وثلاثة من فلسطين أصبحت إسرائيل كما يظهر في المسار الثالث. كان هذا كان بداية النقبة. التوضيح والتحرك والتغيير من أجل أموالنا. التنفيذ من الحقوق والمساعدة التي تستمر إلى اليوم الحقيقي.

في 1967، إسرائيل ثم تحتفظ باستثناء فلسطين. to this very day. In 1967, Israel then occupied the remainder of Palestine, and from the first day of its occupation, started colonizing and annexing the land with the aim of making its occupation irreversible. It left us with a collection of disconnected pantostans, preventing مع مجموعة المتواجدات المتواجدة. تمنع إستقرار نظامنا كما يظهر في ماب 4. إسرائيل أرادت جيوغرافيا فلسطين ولكنها ليست ديموغرافيا. لذا استمرت تسحبنا الناس من خارج المنزل من خارج مدينتهم. هناك ماب الخامس. كان يظهره من خارج إسرائيل من أمريكا للل. هنا هو الماكس الخامس. كانت تصويراً من مدير إسرائيل للجنة الأساميلي في السبتمبر الأخير. تسمى هذا المدينة الأخيرة الجديدة. لا يوجد

فلسطين على هذا الماكس. فقط إسرائيل. تحتوي على كل المنطقة من comprised of all the land from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. This shows you what the prolonged, continuous Israeli occupation of Palestine is intended to accomplish. The complete disappearance of Palestine and the destruction of the Palestinian people. The complete disappearance of Palestine and the destruction of the Palestinian people. Take the last word, please, Kyle. Yeah, I think that short argument does such a good job of obliterating the Biden administration's position that Israel has a right

to self-defense and the Americans have to support it. How could you possibly have a right to self-defense after year after year, decade after decade? You've taken more land, you've displaced more people, you've killed more Palestinians. It's clear what's going on here. And I think this demonstration is just so powerful in showing what Israel has done and what Netanyahu plans to do. Kyle Anselone, thank you, my dear friend. It's a pleasure. I look forward to seeing you again next week. Thank you so much, Judge. Of course. All of your favorites and all of our regulars coming up as the week progresses, Colonel McGregor, Scott Ritter, Professor Sachs, Professor Mearsheimer uh colonel kwatkowski matt ho and of course

the intelligence roundtable on friday judge napolitano for judging freedom Thank you.