Judging Freedom - Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski: Who Will Stop the Gaza Slaughter?

Episode Date: April 30, 2024

Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski: Who Will Stop the Gaza Slaughter?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 Tuesday, April 30th, 2024. Lieutenant Colonel Karen Kwiatkowski joins us now. Colonel Kwiatkowski, it was a pleasure, my dear friend. Thank you. If the Israeli Defense Forces invade Rafah and slaughter another 30,000 or 35,000 people, who or what will stop them? What will happen? I don't know what more can happen. It seems like Israel owns our Congress completely. So our government is not going to change its policy no matter what. I don't see them having even the power to do it. And I think Netanyahu realizes that, I mean, he knows that he doesn't have to

do what the U.S. wants. We're not going to cut off weapons supplies. We are invested heavily in the Israeli government. And so we're going to be there for them. Now, the global reaction is going to be such that I think Israel will be greatly hurt by it. But I don't see that that saves lives. The only global reaction we've seen that approaches a moral view of this is from the Norway foreign minister yesterday at the World Economic Summit. So Tony Blinken is not, you'll get a kick out of this, is not on the stage when he says it, but we believe he's in the audience. Cut number seven. Listen to this. We are now living in the time of a deep crisis of the credibility of the institutions that we have. And I think this has been exacerbated by the crisis in Gaza and by the inability by many

Western countries, I would argue not Norway, but many of our colleagues who have hesitated to use the same type of language against violations of international humanitarian law, for instance, that we easily apply when they are violated by Russia in Ukraine. When it comes to Gaza, we have not been able to see the same type of response against, it is a different case because, of course, the first act was the Hamas attack on Israel. But the way Israel has conducted the war has also been very problematic in light of global norms. And if we don't call out that, it comes back and haunts even the argument on Ukraine.

He's really the only one that is chastising the remainder of the West for their refusal, never mind not doing anything about Gaza, not even saying anything about Gaza. I don't know if Lord Cameron was there in the audience as well. Your view is that Netanyahu will get away with as much as he wants to unless and until the Arab street rises up and forces some Arab dictator or a monarch to do something. Well, I think there's energy there in the Middle East to do something. I just think the United States has totally blown it. We don't have a leg to stand on.

We have already invested in the killing of 30,000 Palestinians, actually 34, I think, 35. And Netanyahu said he's going into Rafah no matter what. That's where a good chunk of the people are concentrated. They're also starving people. They're also people that are subject to disease, a great deal of that. And he's going to invade. So the death toll will be probably double what it already has been. And I don't see the U.S. doing a thing. In fact, this offshore barge or offshore port that they have tried to build, you know, it's doubled or tripled in cost already, situated a few miles from shore. That will be what Biden points to.

Oh, we built this rapid response port six months into the war, of course, that's still not operational. But I think that'll be our excuse. And I don't see our language at the UN changing. We will defend Israel for whatever Israel wants to do, including slaughter literally hundreds of thousands of people. And that's what they've been doing with our support. So I don't see how we get out of it. Instead of turning off the slaughter, instead of saying to Netanyahu, let the trucks in, instead of sending trucks there with Marines to protect them,

we built some piece of plastic a mile and a half offshore. It takes months to build, costs two or three times the original plan. And people are dead of starvation while we're building it. I mean, this is really absurd. This is indefensible from a moral perspective, Karen. That's right. There's no morality that justifies that. was amoral when, like you said, all we had to do was drive the materials and the food and the medical supplies into Gaza from all sides, from the Israeli side, from the Egyptian side, from,

well, I guess you could call the Israeli side to the east, but from the northeast and the south, we could have entered Gaza with food, medicine, and a sense of order, some help for the people that need it. And, you know, we didn't do that because Israel didn't want us to do that, but we could have done that. We could have defended ourselves. We could have put our foot down and said, this is what we're doing, Israel. You must stop. And of course it goes hand in hand with stopping the weapons flow to Israel. And we're not willing to do any of that because we don't, our government doesn't care about tens of thousands of dead people. They don't care about it.

They do not care about it. And that is because they are amoral. They aren't even in touch with the least amount of ethics. Should the International Criminal Court indict Prime Minister Netanyahu, something he claims he's afraid is about to happen. Of course, they should have done it from the beginning. I mean, it should have been led up to by UN Security Council resolutions that condemned this from the very beginning. And every one of those that was tried, every ceasefire resolution that was put forth, all of these were rejected. They were vetoed by the United States, watered down, ruined.

We flew top cover for Netanyahu in this slaughter. We have been part and parcel to it from day one. You know, when I think of the Palestinians and what's happened to the land in Gaza and the people there and the hopes that they might have for a future in Gaza, it's very upsetting. However, in the long run, there may be some benefits as people global norms that we have spent half a century or more trying to develop. This is what is right. This is what will be tolerated. We're violating those openly. And so we can hope maybe that not just the parties, but the congressmen and the people in America turn

away from that. We recognize that it's very wrong. I think, in fact, I think if you ask Americans, yeah, they support Israel. But if you put it, if you ask them, is it OK to slaughter thousands of people and men, women and children and to destroy their property and take it over? Is that right? No. And if they find out, most Americans don't know, if they find out how Gaza was handled for the past 20 or 30 years, basically, people have said an open apartheid camp, but, you know, where all food was controlled and concrete was limited and periodically bombed and attacked by Israel. When you put all that together, there's no American that agrees with this. Only Zionist Jews agree with this, okay? And there's not many of those,

honestly, in the United States. Unfortunately, the ones that are hold political power. Gaza was labeled an open-air concentration camp by an Israeli general. The general who was in charge of keeping the Palestinian people confined in there. He called it that himself. Here's Prime Minister Netanyahu, just about an hour ago, Karen, railing against the possibility that he might be indicted, and of course, playing the anti-Semitism card. You have to hear this to believe this. The International Criminal Court in The Hague is contemplating issuing arrest warrants against senior Israeli government and military officials as war criminals. This would be an outrage of historic proportions. government and military officials as war criminals. This would be an outrage of historic proportions.

International bodies like the ICC arose in the wake of the Holocaust committed against the Jewish people. They were set up to prevent such horrors, to prevent future genocides. Yet now the International Court is trying to put Israel in the dock. It's trying to put us in the dock as we defend ourselves against genocidal terrorists and regimes, Iran of course, that openly works to destroy the one and only Jewish state. Branding Israel's leaders and soldiers as war criminals will pour jet fuel on the fires of anti-Semitism, those fires that are already raging on the campuses of America

and across capitals around the world. Well, there he is, alluding to his condemnation last week of the freedom of speech on college campuses. You know, the ICC is a strange bird. Israel didn't sign the treaty. The United States didn't sign it. Ukraine didn't. Russia didn't. China didn't.

North Korea didn't. China didn't. North Korea didn't. But when they indicted Vladimir Putin, the United States helped them out with all the evidence they could muster. Now, of course, the United States wants to have nothing to do with this other than to put pressure on the prosecutors not to indict Netanyahu. What are your thoughts, Karen? Well, Netanyahu, as usual, when he speaks English, he is directing his language to the Congress and the U.S. policymakers. I don't think most Americans are watching it or they care. He is addressing our state, and he is addressing our state from the Zionist state. And he says us, the Jewish people. But he's not speaking for the Jewish people. He's speaking for the Zionist state, which as a concept has a flaw in it, okay, because they consider

themselves a democracy. But it's very dangerous to be a religious democracy, because what happens if other people live there? What happens if the numbers change? I mean, this is an American concern as well. I mean, why are we worried about immigration? Well, we look at demographics in this country. We tie those demographics to politics in this country. And people have concerns. Some are very positive. They think this is a good change.

Others say, hey, I'm not so sure. In Israel, they have the same problem. But as a religious state, the state itself must have a majority of Jewish voters, and they must be unified in many cases. You know, the Jewish voters vote different ways. They have a great many parties. They have left-wing parties and right-wing parties. War helps push all those parties together, all the Jewish parties, which is good for Netanyahu and it's good for the Zionist state. So, you know, he's speaking for a state, not for the people. When he says us, I think he's lying. I don't know who the us is that he's talking about.

When he talks about a second Holocaust or that anti-Semitism is on the rise, It's anti-Zionism that is concerning him. And that's what he should be saying, because it's the Zionist experiment that has caused these problems. The model for how they set the country up, the method by which they set the country up, all of these things were problematic. And now those problems are coming to the fore. Chris, do we have the clip from Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson about what his rabbi friend said to him?

Okay, so Lawrence Wilkerson, whom you know, was on with us last week. week, and he has a rabbi friend who told him that the greatest advertisement for anti-Semitism in the world today is Benjamin Netanyahu. Similar to what you've just been saying. Let me switch. Actually, before we switch gears, this is going to irritate you, but we'll play it anyway. This is Vedant Patel, one of the two spokespersons for the State Department, being questioned at a State Department presser on this very statement that Prime Minister Netanyahu just gave about the ICC. Watch this. Thank you. I know the State Department and Secretary Blinken made clear that the ICC doesn't have jurisdiction in your view over the Palestinian conflict, but I wanted to get your response to remarks from Netanyahu just today, especially in context of the conversation

we just had about the campus protests. He said, branding Israel's leaders and soldiers as war criminals were poor jet fuel on the fires of anti-Semitism, those fires that are already raging on the campuses of America and across capitals around the world. Do you agree with that assessment that it's anti-Semitic for the ICC to pursue Netanyahu? And what do you make of him connecting this to the – to his protests? MR PRICE, So fundamentally at the heart of this, Julia, we do not believe that the ICC has jurisdiction over this issue, and that's what the crux here. Beyond that, I'd let the prime minister and officials within the Israeli Government

clarify or offer any commentary on his comments, but the crux of this for the United States is that we do not believe that the ICC has jurisdiction on this. That being said, we work closely with the ICC on a number of key areas. We think that they do important work, important work as it relates to Ukraine, Darfur, Sudan. But again, on this particular instance, in this particular instance, I'm sorry, they just do not have jurisdiction. I mean, this guy doesn't know what he's talking about. Somehow they had jurisdiction over Russia. They have jurisdiction over Palestine. But anything to avoid responsibility. Is anything these people say, these spokespeople for the State Department worth paying any attention to. Karen, we keep running it and it's irritating the daylights out of our viewers and almost always out of whoever is the guest at the time.

I mean, they they they're very dishonest, but I think they try as individuals to talk around the issue that they have to lie about. I mean, I think I try to put myself in their position and they're trying not to lie, but their job is to lie. So they're walking around the truth. And if there is anything that's remotely, they can repeat, they repeat it. You know, the jurisdiction thing. It's nonsense, really. And I think, you know, maybe 20, maybe 30 or 40 years ago, what the United States spokesman or the United States government said meant something to other countries, other people. And today it means nothing.

So he is saying nothing, but whatever he says means nothing anyway. So we are not the drivers here. We are the suppliers. The United States is the weapons supplier, and we fly UN top cover for Israel. But other than that, that's who we are to the rest of the world. We do not have the soft power that I think this spokesman and others were brought up believing that the United States had. We don't have that soft power anymore. Here's that clip that I mentioned earlier of Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, former chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell, commenting on Bibi Netanyahu. I don't know how he lives with himself, Colonel. I don't either. I don't either. He is the living manifestation on earth today of what causes anti-Semitism. Those are the words of a rabbi who's been my friend for a long time.

His exact words were, the greatest motivator for anti-Semitism in the world today is Bibi Netanyahu. Could you imagine saying that on the floor of the House of Representatives? You'd be censured. Yeah, but they should say that because I think the truth of it is understood and sensed by many that this guy is, you know, I mean, regardless of whether he's the head of the Jewish state, the guy is arrogant. He is a liar. He is a user. He's a manipulator.

And he's a warmonger. So take away the Jewishness and we would still hate him. Okay. But the fact that he leads the Zionist state and is hurting Jewish people. I mean, they're not winning anything by what they're doing in Gaza. And yet this is Bibi's survival. It's his political survival. So he's sacrificing. He's willing to sacrifice the security and the future of his own country to save his own skin. So it's probably true that he is the source of the key leader in driving anti-Semitism, but he's also the epitome of a really, really awful leader of a country.

He is not a patriot of his country, even though he portrays himself that way. He certainly cannot be a patriot because he is improving nothing, defending nothing, and he's taken Israel down a path that it may not recover from. Well, Israel's economy is suffering terribly, A, because of the draft, B, because of the people that have left, C, because there aren't any Arab workers to do the menial jobs anymore. But you're right, he doesn't give a damn because he knows that as long as the war is being fought, he's got his job. And once the war is over or once he's out of a job, he might be out of his freedom. He'll certainly be in the dock. He'll be a defendant in two criminal prosecutions to say nothing of October 7th. They haven't even begun to investigate that yet. This is, yeah, when they get a chance to really dig deep into what happened prior to and all of the mistakes and possible collusion, we don't know exactly.

When they start asking those questions, Netanyahu will not look good at all. I imagine that Netanyahu will be provide a safe, he will have a safe place in the United States. I think the U.S. will protect him. You know, he has been responsible for buying, quote unquote, buying, whether we give him the money or not, U.S. weapon systems. Certainly we gain intelligence from Israel. So, you know, I think I think he'll have a safe house here. Maybe he'll live next door to Zelensky. Well, Zelensky is not going to be around much longer either. I mean, his term in office expires on May 20th, and there's been nobody reelected to replace him.

One wonders what's going to happen there. According to our colleagues, many of whom are your friends, the cash, $61 billion, $10 billion of it is cash, gone. It's already there. It's already in their banks, and they've distributed it. Yep. $13 billion in equipment. Half of it was sent over there before Congress voted for it because Tony Blinken swore under oath that somehow it was a matter of American national security emergency. More lies.

The rest of that $61 billion stays here, of course, at the military-industrial complex. But Ritter, Colonel McGregor, Larry Johnson, Ray McGovern, I would imagine you say that the $13 billion in military equipment is just going to prolong the obvious, which is the destruction of the Ukrainian military and maybe the Ukrainian state. Yeah, that's very true. I mean, in fact, we've already seen it, even with, I mean, the Russians are reporting how many Ataka missiles they're shooting down. They're showing the, of course, the Abrams tanks.

The F-16s aren't there yet, but supposedly they're coming, and immediately we will have wrecked F-16s to show. Now, whether the Americans are allowed to see it or not, I don't know. Maybe the cash that went to Kiev and is now in bank accounts was kind of the, you know, the goodbye payment or the hello payment, however you want to make it, I guess, as some of these people that have worked with us will need to leave the country because there's a reason he canceled elections. And it's not just that it's difficult to do elections in martial law. He canceled those elections because the people overseas don't like him. This is

Zelensky and his own people that are suffering an extended war for no gains whatsoever blame him for this. So he's got no future in that country. And maybe that money will help him feel safe enough to leave. But, you know, it's hard to say. The people that make our foreign policy, and that's the CIA as well as the State Department and a certain subclass of intellectuals, neocons, and the combination of those folks, they are not connected to reality in most ways. They certainly don't understand war. They have a sanitary view of what it is that they're doing, and they don't understand how wrong and immoral and costly it is. And they don't really care.

Because if they cared, they'd find out how wrong and immoral and costly it was. And they don't care. So they're still making American foreign policy. In fact, the legislation put forth trying to make it permanent, make our Ukraine policy something that no president can change in the future, or at least the next two presidents. So this tells you there's such corruption here and such alternative objectives that are really not shared with the American people at all. And they are at risk because we have our own elections this year. And that's what they care about. They care about their agenda. Dead they are at risk because we have our own elections this year. And that's what

they care about. They care about their agenda. Dead Russians are a plus. Dead Ukrainians don't count, just like dead Gazans don't count. It's a game to them, really. And we've got to rid ourselves of leadership like this. I don't know how we do because it's infected both political parties. But I want to point this out to you. Colonel McGregor reported over the weekend that his sources told him that last week, last calendar week, the Ukraine military lost 8,000 troops dead and a Russian general arrived on the scene with 100,000 fresh Russian troops. Now, do the math. This cannot last much longer, no matter how much cash or what military equipment or how much ammunition we send over there.

No, no. None of this that we're sending helps at all. To some extent, it doesn't even extend the war. It just increases the number of targets that the Russians are capable of taking out, in many cases, simultaneously. I mean, the force misbalance or imbalance there is evident. So you have to think about what is their next phase here. I think Zelensky leaves, and whoever's in charge after Zelensky is going to sit and talk with the Russians. Okay. We missed what you just said, Karen, because it didn't come through. But you were commenting on Colonel McGregor's statistics of 8,000 Ukrainians dead and 100,000 new Russian troops.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, it shows the imbalance of power that really cannot be overcome by whatever we send. And whether it's money, of course, that money vaporizes into, Lord knows where the money goes. The weapons are being vaporized effectively by the Russians, and they will continue to be. So nothing that we send, it may prolong the war and it may not prolong the war because the imbalance of power is so great the Russians can deal with anything that's thrown at them. And so the question is, what's going to be left of Ukraine? At what point will the demilitarization zone, you know, where will it start? Where will it end? At what part will be Russian? We have to figure these things out because the Russians are going to figure it out for Ukraine if we don't start talking. And I say we, you know, the U.S.

government. Maybe the U.S. government doesn't care. Possibly the U.S. government doesn't care about Ukraine at all. That certainly would be a logical conclusion to make when you look at our policy. Well, they don't care about Ukraine. They just want to use it as a battering ram with which to drive Vladimir Putin from office. A dismal failure. Karen, thank you very much. Now I find out that it was only I that couldn't hear you and everybody else could. So everybody got to hear you twice and I got to hear you once. It's worth it. Thank you, Karen. Thanks for your time. We look forward to seeing you next week. Okay. Thanks, Judge. Of course. We have a very good day for you tomorrow at 11 o'clock in the morning. For the Eastern Times, of course, Professor Jeffrey Sachs at 3 o'clock, Phil Giraldi.

And then back to back at 4 o'clock, Aaron Matei. And at 5 o'clock, Max Blumenthal. Wow. Looking forward to that. the politano for judging freedom you