Judging Freedom - Matt Hoh : Europe at War With Itself: The Hidden Battle Over Ukraine

Episode Date: November 13, 2025

Matt Hoh : Europe at War With Itself: The Hidden Battle Over UkraineSee 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 Thursday, November 13, 2025. Matt Ho joins us now. Matt, a pleasure, my dear friend. I want to talk to you at some length about what you perceive is going on in Europe with the disputes overseeing Russian assets and European banks and who's paying for one. what that's ending up in Ukraine. But before we do, some of the events of this week cannot escape my inquiry. What is your understanding of the domestic political fallout in Israel of Prime Minister Netanyahu's failure to condemn and overt looking the other way and condemning and prosecuting the accuser of these four IDF soldiers that filmed themselves raping a helpless and restrained Palestinian civilian. Well, thanks for having me on Judge.

Yeah, I mean, this episode, whether it's the alleged rapists receiving a standing ovation in court, whether it's the stories about the lead prosecutor or the lead a counsel or lawyer for the IDF, the pressure she's under, and I haven't seen any update today, but yesterday were rumors that she had tried to kill herself again. And then, as you said, the fracturing within or the further fracturing within Israel, you know, this division that we see, and we've had Israeli commentators, you've had the previous head of the shin bet, people who really understand the situation and have a very real connection to it, arguing and warning for the last couple of years that the threat to Israel comes not from any external

enemy. It comes not from the Palestinians who the Israelis are occupying, but it comes from within Israel itself. And so I think this story, this episode of these Israeli prison guards who raped this this Palestinian man on camera who by the way according to the Israelis was being held without charge had not done anything and it's just one of the many who we know have been raped the Palestinian Center for Human Rights just put out a report this week this aligns with what the United Nations has reported what journalists have reported what human rights organizations including Israel's own Betzelam have reported for years now that rape Sexual assault, humiliation are all tools that are used systematically and deliberately by the Israelis against the Palestinians.

Thousands and thousands of Palestinian prisoners have endured humiliation, assault, sexual assault, rape at the hands of the Israelis because that is the practice. It is a practice that is an end to itself. They are doing this because, you know, as Das Tyevsky says, I've quoted this so many times now. but power and blood intoxicate. And this tyranny that exists against the Palestinians by Israelis, this episode in particular, it shows the broader issue here. It shows the monstrosity that Israel is. And so I think these divisions, this fracture, you know, the concern about a civil war in Israel,

this all comes from the reality of how Israel has existed and carried out itself over these last decades, that it is a nation. of tyranny. It is a nation that is cool and unjust. And its treatment of the Palestinians, its occupation, it's apartheid, its genocide, is ultimately what will be Israel's own undoing. I mean, this may sound absurd, but I have to ask it, is rape legal in Israel? Or is it just matter the ethnicity of the victim? Well, it certainly seems that many in Israel judge feel that it should be legal. It recalls. when this tape first emerged about a year and a half ago, there were riots. People attacked

the prison itself trying to ensure the safety of these prison guards. There were essentially, again, riots into Knesset, where Knesset members, you know, some members of the Israeli parliament were violent in their support of the right of Israeli soldiers, Israeli prison guards, Israel's the authorities to rape Palestinians. So there is a very large segment within Israel that sees itself as, you know, that sees itself as having this right to do as it wishes, this entitlement. And this is what comes from any form of supremacy, whether it be Jewish supremacy in this case or any other form of supremacy you can find around the world.

And then to tack on to that, you have the internal contradictions of Israel itself. Israel was created as this socialist, it was Jewish, but secular democracy, a model of Western ambition following the Second World War. But of course, that was the facade, that was the trappings or the dressings of it. The reality was the cruelness, the injustice, the greed, right? That was expressed through the occupations, through the wars, through the apartheid, through the genocide. And so those internal contradictions are what is causing Israel to destroy itself from within. And this is not anything that I think judge people should be cheering. I know a lot of us

have no feelings at all for the Israeli state and we wish it to go away. But when you have a nuclear armed supremacist state that is divided this way, where you have hundreds of thousands, millions opposed, not to the government, but opposed to any idea of retreating from the supremacy. So when you see those who are lined up on the streets against Netanyahu, we have to remember that there are hundreds of thousands of armed settlers who view those people as traitors. And this is why it's concern about a civil war in Israel is not something that's hyperbolic or exaggerative. It may be unlikely, but it is something that is a risk. And so if anyone thinks that a nuclear-armed, psychopathic, genocidal state like Israel should

fall apart because of violence, well, the consequences of that would be catastrophic. Is rape cultural in the IDF? Do they just talk about it, boast about it, look forward to it, assuming they have the right to it? I mean, Max of Blumenthal says that Netanyahu is afraid. to condemn the rape because of his problems with reservists. Certainly, I think the issues with Israeli manning of their militaries, the fact that they're scaling back on the use of reserves, at least as it was reported in the last few weeks,

because of the issues of having those men and women show up, let alone the broader issues to the Israeli society and its economy from having hundreds of thousands called up out of a relatively small population of 8 million or 9 million or so. I'll say this, to Judge, this is an aspect of militarized culture. This is what militarism leads to. I don't think there's any military in the world that doesn't have an issue with a rape culture. You have that in the United States military.

I can speak to say Okinawa in Japan, where a rape culture existed for decades, where thousands and thousands of Okinawans were raped by American service members who were stationed on Okinaola following the Second World War. There was a sense of entitlement among the Americans that those Okinawan boys and girls that were raped were theirs for the taking, right? It was a spoiled of victory. This is what empire brings us, let alone the militarized aspects of power, right? The ability to humiliate somebody. And you see that still in the United States military with incredibly, high rates of sexual violence. It's, you know, based upon the Veterans Administration's own data,

we know that between one and four and one and three women, maybe even more, because we know this is always underreported, but between one and four and one and three women who serve in the U.S. military are victims of sexual assault, rape, or harassment. And among men, there are more men who are sexually insulted or raped in the U.S. military every year, then there are women. This is an issue that comes to the core aspects of militarism in general and the dangers of it. Again, to go back to Das Tessky, the idea of, you know, anyone who's ever humiliated somebody knows the power within that, and that blood and power intoxicating. You see that, then permeate through a militarized culture that ends up where this idea of rape,

sexual assault, abuse, whatever, becomes a key aspect of it. Can you assess, I'm a segueing now to Latin America. Can you assess the amount of military hardware that's floating off the coast of Venezuela and the likelihood that it will be used because of the cost in bringing all those naval officers, all those Marines, and all that hardware. I'm saying it hardware, the Gerald R. Ford, the battleship groups that protect it, all of that down there. It's significant, Judge. I mean, this is a big flotilla, if you will, as well as the other pieces of the force that have been shifted to support it. So signals intelligence aircraft, electronic warfare aircraft, we see B1 and B52 bombers,

regularly making flights, making sure that they're known, you know, off the coast of Venezuela, but you have a decent-sized strike force, but it's limited. You'll see in the news, I'll reference 16,000 Marines and sailors as part of this. Only about 2,000 of them are actually able to go ashore. So the vast bulk of the personnel that are part of this flotilla are manning ships. And you only have about 2,000 Marines. who are capable of conducting operations on the ground. And they are extremely limited with what they're able to do. They're part of what's called a Marine Expeditioner Unit.

And they are light infantry. Very often they don't even have tanks. They definitely don't have tanks. I know that. So there aren't even four tanks with them. There's nothing that's heavy. So the ability of that force to go ashore and whole ground is extremely limited, you would need to fly in support, drop in,

paratroopers and rangers and things like that in order to hold ground and then you'd have to sustain that so the idea of the united states launching an invasion of venezuela is highly unlikely based upon the forces that are available in the area right now now however the shrammed-out strike capability uh there are hundreds of cruise missiles available uh to this force uh there are the uh four squadrons of f-18s that are aboard uh the the the the the the the the the the the general Ford. There are the Marine Corps F-35s that are located in Puerto Rico. And then, of course, you have aircraft that can come out of the United States or come out of other locations to support it. I saw that we flew AC 130 gunships into Central America, whether it was Panama or El Salvador. I can't remember off the top of my head. But so there are, there is a tremendous about a capability that is present. And I think what the Pentagon is trying to do is give the president as much options as they can without putting the forces in place that would be similar to what you would need for an invasion, like we saw, you know, 22 years ago in Iraq.

Well, Venezuela apparently thinks this is going to happen. Yeah, and I don't blame it. Just to watch this, Matt, and then weigh in it. Cut number 15, Chris. Integral Defense commands that bring together all public institutions of the Venezuelan state, the military and all popular power, must be activated at dawn. So by signing this, the order must be activated for integral defense commands to be established, structured, and put to work in order to be prepared. We love peace.

We deeply love peace. We don't want war here, nor in any other place around the world. But if they dare to touch Venezuela, they're going to find us in every single. going to find us in every street those two comments were made two days ago so if the executive order was complied with substantially then all of his troops and his militias and whatever he has are on high alert does he have air defense they do have air defense they have a several thousand uh shoulder launched uh air surface to air missiles similar to what we have with through the stinger uh missile they also have some older, larger air defense systems. You know, they showed some of them in some of the videos

coming out of Venezuela. I don't think those are any threat to our aircraft and they'd be pretty easy for us to find and destroy. However, particularly the shoulder launched missiles, which are very hard to find, are a great threat to helicopters as well as the drones. So you could see that as one of the ways that the United States, when it's deciding how it's going to attack Venezuela, shaping its operations. I think that the United States judge, you know, since the second Obama administration, has found and realized that large commitments of ground forces are politically costly. They had a cost in 06. They had a cost at 08. Donald Trump beats Hillary Clinton in 2016. There's evidence. There's research. There's studies that show this because of the

Iraq war, right? So this idea of having large ground troops occupying a place, taking casualties, Americans coming home in body bags, et cetera, et cetera, that that is too politically costly. So then you think what would they do? Well, you know, we're looking at air strikes, try and attack Maduro's military, try and, you know, assassinate his key people, assassinate him himself, maybe even be so bold to send in special operations to do a kill capture mission on the, You know, I mean, so there are plenty of options for the Americans here short of invasion. The danger in all this, too, is just not confined to Venezuela. You've already seen Maria Machado, the Nobel Peace Prize winner and the heir apparent, according to the Americans, to Maduro's seat.

You know, she's saying, you know, once you liberate us here in Venezuela, then you're going to go on and you're going to, you know, the Americans will go on and liberate Nicaragua and liberate Cuba. And there are certainly those like Marco Rubio who are in favor of that, who believe that that's the right course of action. But you also have this other danger, too, that the support for someone like Machado, the support for the Venezuelan operation through military means, that's only going to embolden other groups throughout Latin America. So if you're particularly a right-wing organization in Central America, South America, you may see the Americans, attacking Venezuela in order to put Machado or someone else in the power as the right pathway for you as well. You may say, you know what, we need to show the Americans that we should be supported. We're worthy of their support. And so we've already seen such type of actions in Latin America, you know, particularly, say, referencing Brazil just a couple of years ago where there was the

coup there. So there's this risk that it spreads, that whatever we do in Venezuela, is metastatic and it's malignant. And history tells us this will be the case. Look at Vietnam. It spreads into Laos and Cambodia. Right, right. And it's probably, look at Iraq. It spreads into Syria.

You know, I invite people to, you know, in the comments, there's a place where the United States has done such things where it hasn't spread to please enlighten me because I can't think of any. Right. Let's jump across the Atlantic. Are NATO countries using their own funds? and directly paying American arms manufacturers, a military industrial complex, and are those arms manufacturers then just shipping what's been paid for to Ukraine?

This is what the president claims. Do you understand this to be accurate? I believe that is accurate, Judge. I haven't seen anything that contradicted, but that doesn't mean it's not, you know, that's what the president, that's what this administration wants to do. do they see that as the best way of pursuing this proxy war against Russia. I believe it'll be the template for this administration and any successor administration for future proxy wars.

Get the cost off of the United States. Get the real max benefits of having a proxy war by actually making a buck off of it. I mean, that is actually, you know, as we used to say in the Marine Corps, if you're able to write a, you know, the phrase was riding the gravy train with biscuit wheels. I mean, if you can engage in a proxy war and make money off of that, then my God, what a racket. You know, Smetley Butler didn't know what, you didn't know a tenth of it if you're able to now do it this way. But, you know, certainly this idea of the Europeans paying for the weapons and then utilize them. The whole issue, though, Judge, is that we just can't produce the weapons.

We can't make them fast enough for the Ukrainians to use. We can only produce 600 Patriot missiles a year, total. And everyone around the world wants patriots, including all our forces throughout the Middle East, that fired off all their patriots defending Israel over the last two years. Are the Europeans doing this willingly, amicably, and fairly, or are some bearing more of a burden than others? The entire EU is bearing a burden on this. So while the EU is suffering with wealth in a quarter, you know, wealth in a quarter, quality, housing problems, health care issues, immigration issues, etc., their leaders are choosing

to prioritize militarism, or choosing to prioritize warmaking. You know, you had last month, Ursula von der Leyen in a statement in a press conference say, the two priorities for the EU going forward are to build our armies and to win the war in Ukraine. Well, winning the war in Ukraine, as we know is impossible. And building your armies then for what, at the expense of, of continuing to deprioritize your people, continuing to not invest in your own infrastructure and economies. So, you know, the reality is that throughout Europe, in the leadership circles, among the ruling class, they see that maintenance of the status quo is the most important thing for them, even though their people are suffering. And in their mania,

they believe that the way to maintain the status quo is to have some external armies, is to have an external enemy, excuse me, is to have some great boogeyman to have to fight, is to be able to, as the Democrats here in the United States would work, juxtaposition themselves in a war of democracy versus authoritarianism. Remember, the very first campaign ad, the Joe Biden administration runs for his reelection campaign in September of 2023, was Joe Biden going to Ukraine, Joe Biden, the wartime president.

And that's the same, right? That's the same political identity that Starmer, Macron, Mertz, all these leaders who have less than one-fourth of their population supporting them believe is the best way forward. So regardless of whether or not how they're going to pay for these weapons, it's a ruinous path. Either they're not, they don't have the money to pay for it, which is what most of us believe, and they're going to go further into debt, or they do have the money to pay for it. But that still means that they're prioritizing, you know, this event. insuring Ukraine and the militarization that build up of their armies over investing in their people.

And they can't agree on whether or not to seize Russian state assets in European banks because most of it is in Belgium and the Belgium Prime Minister says, forget about it. We're not going to endure this lawsuit. Exactly, because it's clearly illegal. It's clearly illegal. It's clearly theft. But they talk about it. Even Trump talked about it as, quote, you ready for this?

creative financing. Creative financing is a robber going to say to the police, I didn't steal that money? It's creative financing. Well, it gets even, even, it's even worse, Judge, the insanity of it all. So last month when this was being discussed, this idea of this $165 billion loan to Ukraine from the EU, the chair of the EU Budget Committee, he says is essentially, and we don't have to worry about this. We don't have to put this in the books as we would a normal loan because this money is all going to be repaid to us by the Russians when they lose the war. This is all going to be

part of the reparations. Russians will, Russia will pay after they lose the war. This is the thinking in Europe, this fantasy, this delusion that somehow they're going to win this war in Ukraine. So they don't have to worry about giving the Ukrainians $165 billion because the Russians will pay them back when the Russians lose. I mean, if you put this into a script of a movie or a novel, no one would watch or read it. It's so fanciful. It really is. It really is.

And the terrible thing about it, right, the thing about that haunts us, I know it haunts you, judge, you know, folks watching, is that how many men died today in this stupid, worthless war, right? How many thousands have died this week? And you see how the leaders of these countries that are egging on Ukraine to destroy itself. This is the European version of Americanism from Vietnam. If people were born, Vietnam, we had to save the village by destroying it. And the Europeans have taken that up. We have to save Ukraine by destroying it.

Matt, thank you very much for your analysis. Deeply appreciated. We will see you tomorrow when you return for a guest appearance on the Intelligence Community Roundtable. Thanks for joining us, my friend. Thank you, Judge. Of course. Tomorrow Friday at 4 o'clock from St. Petersburg, Russia, Scott Ritter, and at 4.30, the Intelligence Community Roundtable,

with Ray McGovern and Matt Ho. Judge Napolitano for judging freedom. You're going to be able to be.