Judging Freedom - Mat Hoh: Netanyahu’s False Narratives.

Episode Date: November 5, 2024

Mat Hoh: Netanyahu’s False Narratives.See 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. Hi, everyone. Hi everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Tuesday, November 5, 2024, Election Day here in the United States. Matt Ho will be here with us in a moment on breaking news out of Israel. Prime Minister Netanyahu has fired his defense minister while Israel is involved in four wars.

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Remember, hope is not a strategy, but gold is. Matt Ho, welcome to the show. Always a pleasure, my dear friend. Thank you for sharing this time with us. Just about 30 minutes ago, the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that he had fired Defense Minister Yoav Galant, with whom he had disputed publicly about domestic political issues, as well as about the course of events in the war and what former Defense Minister Gallant said was the lack of a plan to end the war. What is your initial take on this? It's interesting, Judge, because, and thanks, of course, for having me back on. I saw the news after I had seen the news that Galant and the Israeli Defense Forces say they were going to start drafting ultra-Orthodox Jews into the military.

And so I saw that news a couple hours ago, and it just happened about a half hour or so ago to see that Galant had been fired. And maybe the timing is too close to that, but that seems to me to understand this as a domestic political situation with regards to Netanyahu and Gallant, as opposed to the actual conduct of the war, how well the IDF is performing. I'm a big fan of generals being fired. Lincoln did during the Civil War. The Americans fired generals all the time during the Second World War. You rarely see that these days. Certainly the list of American generals who should have been fired during my wars is as long as my arm. But in this case, I don't think that's what happens.

I think this is inherently political. overextending the IDF. So correct me if I'm wrong, I thought that Gallant had great relations with the senior people in the IDF, none of whom can be happy about this. You know, you go back, a couple months ago, and let's also remember too, this is the second time that Netanyahu has fired Gallant. He fired him in March of 2023. That only lasted for a week or two, if I remember correctly. And that was also internal politics that had to do, it's important to point out that Gallant is a member of Netanyahu's party. He's a Likud member. So he's not in there because he's from some other party, part of a coalition. But their own political disagreements, Gallant's personal dislike of Netanyahu has been clear and Netanyahu's

dislike of Gallant. But your point is absolutely accurate, Judge, about Gallant representing the IDF. And we saw this over the summer. If people remember, go back a couple of months, there's the great debate coming out of Israel over what to do about the Philadelphia corridor, whether or not, you know, in Philadelphia corridors, that strip of land between Gaza and Egypt. And it, that became the, the issue of the day over the summer was whether or not Israel would keep forces in the Philadelphia corridor and Golan and representing the IDF was opposed to that. And he was the only member of Netanyahu's cabinet that was opposed to that. This idea, the argument that was going on was about whether or not to keep troops in Gaza or pull them out. But we certainly have gone well past that argument. And the issue is that Gallant has been speaking out, has been offering that voice to the IDF of saying we are overstretched.

We are being pushed too hard. We are being overextended. We can't keep this going on. So there's been that tension as well. But I think also, too, is there's this this history between Netanyahu and Golan that today was the breaking point and Golan is no longer in that government. And he's being replaced by Israel Katz, who is the foreign minister, who I think is much more amenable to going along with whatever Netanyahu wants. So the Netanyahu government set out two goals on October 8th of last year. One was to secure the safe release of the hostages, and the other was to defeat Hamas. Have they achieved either of those goals? Have they come close to achieving either of those goals? No, no, Judge. In fact, they've increased the number of unachievable goals because over the summer, the Netanyahu government said

another goal of the war, the new goal of this war is to get our settlers, get our citizens back into their homes in northern Israel. So that justifies that was the rationale for the invasion of Lebanon. Both these metrics, these goals, these objectives of either getting the hostages home or getting the settlers back into their homes are very measurable. Either the hostages are home or they're not. Either these settlers are in hotels in Tel Aviv and in Haifa, or they're back in their own homes. And of course, the understanding of that is when you have a metric like that, that you're not even trying to do anything about, or you're just using it as a tool or a prop to achieve some

other objective, well, then the war can go on forever, which is, I think, essentially what is, is essentially what the ruling government in Israel wants, this thing to carry on because of the political benefits, something we've talked about before, that this war, this genocide, is politically beneficial to Netanyahu. Now, this- Politically beneficial to him personally, as well as politically. Exactly. Personally, whether it's keeping him out of prison, whether it's keeping him in power, whether it's providing for the fortunes of the Likud party and their coalition partners.

Yeah, there's many who are gaining from this genocide in terms of just personal and institutional gain. So I want to talk to you about Netanyahu and the truth. The Netanyahu government, along with the Wall Street Journal, claims that the Israeli Air Force materially and substantially degraded Iran's air defenses two and a half weeks ago. There seems to be no evidence for that. And before you even comment on it, I know he's not a reliable source, but he works for my former employer, General Jack Keane. He also works for one of those NGOs that's funded by the Defense Department. Here he is over the weekend saying Iran is sitting there essentially naked. Cut number three. Military effects of that strike is beyond what's being reported because they have literally taken down most of the Russian air defense system,

the so-called S-300 missile defense systems that the Russians gave them years ago. And that's what's really protecting their nuclear enterprise, their oil and gas industry, and other key strategic assets like the missile production factories that the Israelis did destroy at multiple sites. Those were ballistic missile factories, by the way. So yes, this air defense system destruction is really powerful because Iran is sitting there essentially naked. Is there any evidence to support a claim like that, which mirrors what the Netanyahu government spokesperson released? No, no, Judge, there's not. There's not.

And, you know, just to go back to Galant for one second, too, because what's happening in Israel right now is there's a major scandal where four members of the prime minister's office, four members of Netanyahu's staff have been arrested for leaking classified information. Oh, Netanyahu's chief spokesperson was just denied bail. His time in jail was just extended by the court by eight days. 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. Right. And this scandal is much bigger than it's

a scandal of classified information being passed on to media. It was classified information that was also manipulated and falsified in order to sabotage any ceasefire talks, in order to deny the prospects of the hostages being set free. So it's also very convenient now to turn on Gallant, use him as a scapegoat for this war not going on as well as it should. If it wasn't for Gallant doing his job better, the hostages would be home, as well as, of course, to distract from this scandal. But with regards to Iran, as you were saying, Judge, there's no evidence that the Israeli strike caused any such damage. For me and many others, appears to have been a limited limited face saving attack by Israel meant to keep the reaction, counteraction, tit for tat cycle going so it doesn't slow down prior to the American elections. And now that we're here on election day, we'll see what happens, of course, with the Americans decide they want to do in terms

of how fully involved they want to be in a war with Iran, you know, alongside of Israel. But yeah, General Keen's comments were just absolute, you know, nonsense. There's no evidence behind them. And it just seems as if Israel's attack, as I said, was limited in face saving. Hasn't the Israeli media reported that Israeli jet fighter pilots confronted some sort of an unknown radar type resistance and they turned around and the second wave didn't come and the third wave didn't come. What would that be? Would that be their lack of familiarity with the new Russian air defense systems that were delivered to Iran in the past month? Yeah, I mean, this would have been the first time the Israeli jets encountered this. I mean, Israeli jets have not in this type of in that type of formation, that type of quantity or mass

approach the Iranians before like this. Other attacks by Iran against Iranian targets within Iran have been utilized, have been utilizing, you know, smaller drones that probably were set off from inside of Iran, or maybe in parts of Turkish or Iraqi Kurdistan or something like that. But in terms of the actual Israeli Air Force approaching the Iranian airspace and entering into Iran's air defense interdiction zone, they would never have seen Iran's air defense capabilities as they did. I'm skeptical as this idea they turned around. I think this attack on Iran was meant to be limited, was meant to be a standoff attack using these air launch ballistic missiles. This is essentially what we

saw with this attack, Judge, was essentially what we saw in those classified documents that were released in the middle of October, you know, showing the analysis or the readout of American satellite imagery of Israeli preparations. So that fell in line with it, you know, utilizing just these ballistic missiles. It would be the prudent and wise way to go about conducting a limited face-saving attack as they did. They launched these missiles from over Iraq. So the Iraqis, of course, are very upset about this. The Iraqi Popular Mobilization Forces, Qatab Hezbollah, are, excuse me, are, you know, vowing revenge against the Americans,

for the Americans allowing the Israelis to use Iraqi airspace to launch these attacks on Iran. I mean, so there's a lot of complexity there. There's a lot of second and third order effects that are occurring. There's a lot of actors who are involved in this more than just the Israelis and the Iranians. But, you know, with your question regarding the Iranian air defense system. Yes, certainly the Israelis. And that may have been a part of this too, get the Israelis to turn on their air defense systems so that we understand it better, so we can map it, so we can analyze it,

so we can capture how they actually are going to try and protect themselves if we do launch these types of strikes. Because this is the problem for both the Israelis and Americans. If they want to do anything of any consequence to the Iranians, they want to go in and actually try and destroy Iranian command and control facilities,

destroy Iranian missile production facilities, destroy Iranian nuclear production facilities, et cetera. They're going to have to come in with aircraft loaded with bombs and actually drop bombs. I mean, these bombs, you can drop them from 30, 40 miles away, possibly, if you use the American JDAM kits. But still, they're going to have to be in Iranian airspace in range of the Iranian missiles, which are, as you said, Russian missiles, S-300s, S-400s. And at that point, we'll see just how well the newest American technology, particularly the F-35s, match up against the Russian technology. And I think a lot of people in the world are interested to see that. I'm also thinking that there are many people who don't want to see that,

particularly in the American defense industry, who feel that the American weapons may not match up to their descriptions on their sales brochures. And yet they got paid hundreds of millions anyway. but but what you know the f-35 program judge the f-35 which you know the general accounting office just over the summer put out a new report and then the current cost of the f-35 is nearly 200 million dollars a plane 197 million dollars a plane and the cost to maintain these aircraft and operate them over their lifetime is a couple hundred million dollars more. Do we give these to Israel or do they pay for them? Both. There's both. It can be done both ways where we provide weapons, munitions

through our foreign military financing programs, that $3.8 billion a year that's provided annually to Israel. But then there was also that $20 billion or so that we provided back in April to Israel, some of which provides money just for them to buy weapons. And then the Israelis, of course, are able to purchase things on their own. And that's the way it works throughout the world. There's a mix of whether it's weapons that we basically pay for other nations to, you know, a subsidy for the American defense industry, or these nations will purchase these weapons directly from the manufacturers. If we, if the Iranian air defense systems, whether Iranian homegrown or whether installed by the Russians, were sufficient to stop, deter, confuse, scare away, whatever phrases you want to use, the Israelis, would they similarly stop, deter, confuse, scare away Americans? Yes, absolutely.

There's no reason. The only I think essentially the Israelis have the top of the line F-15s. They have the top of the line F-35s. The F-35s are the planes are supposed to be stealth. The Americans could bring in their B-2 stealth bombers, although those those those bombers have never been tested against modern air defense systems. I don't think they've ever been tested against any air defense systems, to be frank. So at that point, you're wondering then about what type of American electronic countermeasures are out there, what type of electronic warfare that the Americans might have that the Israelis don't. But certainly this is a problem for both the Americans and the Israelis is that if we have to penetrate Iranian airspace and we have to go up against these S-300 and S-400s,

we may be successful in some ways, but the likelihood of us losing aircraft, including our stealth aircraft, these $200 million copy airplanes, is going to be a real embarrassment for us. As well as, too, will we even achieve our goals? Will we even achieve the aims of the bombing campaign to begin with? Is the F-35 a lemon?

Yeah, yeah. Oh, absolutely, Judge. I mean, this thing is the poster child of the corruption of the military industrial complex that we all know so well. I don't know if you happen to see. Last week, there was a report that came out that the soap dispensers on the C-17 cargo planes have a 8000 percent markup on them. So soap dispensers that would cost maybe fifteen dollars or so that you buy off of Amazon. The Air Force was paying, you know, at least two of which, essentially two of which are flying to Israel every day, bringing weapons and munitions and equipment to the IDF to carry out the genocide.

They're flying around with soap. Why does the government do that? Why does it pay almost criminally inflated prices that the taxpayers would never consent to if they knew it? Because it's a racket from top to bottom, Judge. Whether it is the corruption that comes from the campaign contributions, so that if you look at, say, the campaign contributions to the House and Senate Armed Services Committee, the millions upon millions of dollars that go to those committee members, whether it is the fact that the experts that go into Congress to testify and say, this is what we need. We need to have F-35. We need to have the C-17

with $800 soap dispensers. These are men and women who are financed, who are funded by the defense industry. I think it was the Quincy Institute just had a study out that found out three quarters of those who testify to Congress on matters of war and peace are funded by the defense industry. You know, I mean, so it's just from top to bottom, you have this corruption, and I didn't even really get into the revolving door. So when the generals and admirals leave the Pentagon, where do they go to? Right? And when when Lloyd Austin, who was four star general, then he went to Raytheon, then he became secretary of defense in three months time. Where do you think he's going? Back to Raytheon.

Back to Raytheon. I mean, and the same thing, too. It's not even that like Austin, along with Tony Blinken, belong to a venture capital fund, a private equity firm called Pine Island Capital. So both Blinken and Austin are involved in the same private financing of the weapons industry for which they oversee when they're in office. Austin through the management of the Pentagon and Blinken through running the State Department, which is, of course, the arms salesman for the United States. And we didn't even get into Blinken. I mean, Blinken's then role in West Executives, which is a consultancy, not a lobbying firm, a consultancy that makes

sure Congress buys these weapons. I mean, the whole thing is in just talking about Austin and Blinken, you know, that's just a microcosm of the whole thing. With Cheryl Thornoy, who will become the next secretary of defense, where is she at right now? She's at West Executive Visors selling weapons to the Pentagon, right? And when she- It doesn't matter who the president is. This culture will be the same, whether the secretaries of defense and state are Democrats or Republicans, whether it's Mike Pompeo or Lloyd Austin? Yeah, essentially, Judge. I mean, you have this question of living in an oligarchy, which is what we're in. You have this question of an empire that we've had this conversation before,

almost a chicken and egg type of conversation, which comes first, the ideology or the money making. You know, for me, it's two sides of the same coin. So, I mean, it is. I mean, the fundamental business of the empire is expansion of the empire and the profiting within that expansion. And that is the best, most, the easiest way to understand that profit is to see it through the defense industry. I mean, there's other industries as well that are part and parcel, part of our government, that are essentially our government. If you look at our agriculture policies, who's in charge of our agriculture policies, who's in charge of our healthcare policies, well, it's the healthcare insurance companies and the pharmaceutical companies, right? I mean, so when you have a system that is essentially a system of legalized

bribery, this is the consequences. You, I, everyone watching, we have to endure these consequences. And that means we end up purchasing $200 million warplanes that don't work to fight in wars that are of no interest to the American people. What if voting is fruitless? What if it doesn't matter who you vote for? What if the outcome will be the same, although the personality and the culture will be different? I think many Americans feel that way. You know, in the U.S., for folks who are international watching this, judges, you know this, in elections, we have one- to one half of voters don't vote. And in the studies that are out there about why people don't vote, it's not because they're apathetic. It's not because they're people who just, you know, have, you know, essentially just don't have the smarts to do it.

These primarily, according to the studies, are people who understand that it doesn't affect them, that they don't have a role in it, that whatever they do is not going to matter. You know, so it's not that they're apathetic. It's that they're disengaged because they see the process of voting as futile. And I mean, this is a problem you have going to have record turnout possibly today. I live in North Carolina. We've had record turnout so far in our early voting. But also, too, then you look at that, you pull that apart and you say, but these people aren't voting for something. They're voting against something. You know, Democrats and Republicans may be turning out in record numbers, but they're turning out record numbers because of hate and fear. Right. And, you know, I mean, where does that lead then? I mean, what good can possibly come from that? No, but my point is, it doesn't matter if Kamala Harris or Donald Trump wins in the area that we're talking about. The military industrial complex will flourish and it will control the defense establishment in the United States and the State Department.

And it will set American foreign policy. Correct. I mean, so then it just becomes a self-reinforcing cycle where the defense industry alongside of the, this is, call them all neoconservatives to make it simple. It doesn't matter if it's a liberal Democrat like Tony Blinken or a conservative Republican like Mike Pompeo. Their desire to kill, their desire for war, and their desire to buy military gear, whether we need it or not, whether it's adequately priced or not, whether it's for a legitimate war or not, will be the same. That's right. And no one who is not, who doesn't have those views, who doesn't have that war, that romanticism for war, right, who is not bought into

this imperial ideology will never be in those positions. That's the way the system is set up. It's set up so that you cannot get into those positions without embracing that ideology. So what you have is you have the people like the John Boltons, right? You have the Hillary Clintons. You have these hawks who are going to benefit and prosper in this system because the money defines the system, the money underwrites it. So this is why you have in Washington, D.C., what's called the blob, right? This foreign policy consensus, to put it politely, where there is no type of outside thinking. Judge, you and I, the other folks, you know, I mean,

and it's why I love being on your program. I mean, for me to be on this show with the likes of a Saks, a Mearsheimer, or a Wilkerson, McGovern, you know, all these types, it's amazing to me. And, like, I feel like in this lineup, you know, like I'm batting eighth, you know, type of thing, and I'm happy to do so, right? But the thing about it. We love you and the viewers love you.

But the point, the point, the thing about that, though, is that like you take a guy like Sax, you take a guy like Mearsheimer, guy like Wilkerson, you know, who all these folks that you have on your program. And if we were to go up to D.C. and talk to people about your show and other people who do similar work like you do, what would the response be? They're not serious. Mearsheimer is not serious. Sachs is not serious. Wilkerson is not serious. Ritter and McGovern, they're not serious. I mean, on and on and on through your whole lineup. Okay, well, how come they're not serious? Well, that's essentially because they don't take the money of the defense industry and they're not devoted to this imperial ideology. And that's why they're not serious. And so folks like myself, you, these others, we have no presence in Washington, D.C., because we don't dovetail with those two sides of the coin, the imperial ideology, and the moneymaking. Thank you, Matt. Very, very courageously and articulately put, except you're not batting eight. I don't know where you're batting, but you're an essential part of the lineup. I was never very good anyway.

Talk about firing. Somebody just wrote to me, George Steinbrenner fired Billy Martin four times. Yes, that's true. I remember those days. Yeah. Well, thank you, Matt. All the best, my dear friend. All right. Thanks, Judge.

Okay. Coming up this afternoon at three o'clock on these same topics, Colonel Karen Kwiatkowski, and at four o'clock on the same topics, Colonel Karen Kwiatkowski, and at four o'clock on the same topics, including Ukraine, Scott Ritter. Judge Napolitano for judging freedom. Thank you.