Judging Freedom - Matt Hoh : IDF Kills During ‘Ceasefire’

Episode Date: November 18, 2025

Matt Hoh : IDF Kills During ‘Ceasefire’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, November 18, 2025. Matt will be here with us in just a minute on the IDF, still killing, still destroying, still genocide during the so-called ceasefire. But first this. History tells us every market eventually falls. currencies collapse and look at where we are now

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either but one thing will gold I've set it on my show for years Gold survives collapse. Central bankers know this and billionaires know it. That's why they're buying more. Is it too late to buy or is it just the right time? Call my friends at Lear Capital to find out. Ask questions. Get the free information. There's no pressure. And that's why I buy my gold and silver from Lear. And right now you can get up to $20,000 in bonus medals with a qualified purchase. Call 800, 511, 4620, or go to Learjudgeonap.com today. Matt Howe, welcome here, my dear friend. Thank you for accommodating my schedule. What did the United Nations Security Council agree to yesterday

and why were there pictures this morning of this reprehensible Danny Dannon, the Israeli ambassador to the UN, embracing Mike Waltz, the U.S. ambassador. Well, thanks for having me on, Judge. You know, essentially what the U.N. did yesterday was to recreate or reenact or to cosplay early 20th century European powers colonizing the world. You know, that this is essentially the same process, more or less, that we see after the First World War, where the British get their mandate, the French get their countries, you know,

throughout the Middle East. And that's what we have here. We're stepping back in time 110 years, essentially. What this is is nothing more than a colonization of Gaza. It is a determined effort to rip Palestine apart. That's one of the things I think is not getting up attention here, is that by putting Gaza under the authority effectively of the United States as a territory, as a colony, as a protectorate or a mandate, you've essentially split Gaza, divorced it from the West Bank. So one more level of doing Israel's bidding here. What we're looking at is the disenfranchisement, the diminishment, the destruction of Palestine. there is no pathway to a statehood. This is colonization. This is the defeat of what the

Palestine resistance has been trying to achieve, not just for the last two years, but for the last decades, for the last eight, nine decades. So what we saw happen yesterday at the Security Council was abhorrent. It is one of those black marks on history. And for the Palestinians, it's nothing new. It's not just their outright enemies, those who will colonize and destroy and take from them, but also to the rest of the world that gives them lip service, but then at the end turns their back on them as they just did. Why is their Arab and Muslim brothers and sisters desert them? Judge, I think it's the same as with the rest of the world. I mean, it wasn't just Algeria and Pakistan, but it was the other 10 members of the United Nations Security Council

that turned their back on them. It was nations that will state that this is a genocide, nations that will call for sanctions, nations that may even do things, diplomatic efforts, recall their ambassadors, or certainly all these countries voted to recognize a Palestinian state. You know, as we've seen that play out every year in the UN, where it's the United States, Israel, and a couple of small countries that the United States essentially owns, voting against a Palestinian statehood and the rest of the world voting for it, those nations went along with the U.S. I think this is provided this resolution, this Board of Peace,

this transitional governance by an international stabilization force, however they want to describe it, is just a farce. It's an ability to provide these countries with some form of plausible deniability that we went along in a good faith effort under the United Nations resolution. We didn't intend for it to be stuck Gaza to never get out of this temporary status. We didn't intend for this nebulous, vague, impossible pathway to peace to prove to be really impossible. And so it's just more the same from the international community when it comes to the Palestinians, just in the. abandonment of them. They're useful to the Palestinians are useful to these nations around the world when they want to mouth off against the Americans or when they want to show America's hypocrisy

or where they want to pander to their own people, particularly in the global South or in the developing world or the third world. But when it comes to the reality of standing up to the Americans with regards to Palestine, then they say, no, it's easier for us to go along with the Americans than to actually do something substantial, do something worthy, or do something of any significance for the Palestinians. And that's what we have here. I think many countries are tired. They want to see this go. They want to get back to business as usual. There are benefits. I don't know if you saw this judge, but the Germans who only recently put a partial weapons halt. So up until 2023, Germany provided 30% of Israel's rough weapons. And then finally,

last August, two years into the genocide, Germany puts in place a partial weapons ban to Israel. And now they've already removed that weapons ban. Just this past week, the Germany said we're going to start selling weapons back to Israel because there's peace now. Right. I mean, so for many of these countries, it's the ability to now get back to business as usual. And then for some that actually are adversaries to the Americans, like the Russians and the Chinese, I believe why they abstained is they want to see the Americans get stuck in another endless war, which makes sense. If you're the Russians and the Chinese and you want to see the Americans jump into something that could prove as intractable or as costly as, say, Iraq or Afghanistan or Vietnam,

then sure, let the Americans take ownership of Gaza. Let them talk about possibly putting troops there. And let's see how that affects the Americans 5, 10, 15 years down the road from now. Will the United States build a half a billion dollar military base somewhere on the border between Gaza and Israel? And to what end for American national security? God, Judge, you know, I was thinking about this earlier today. The day after 9-11, I was an officer in the Marine Corps. I went and had breakfast with a colleague, my friend of mine, also a Marine Corps.

And this is September 12th. We spoke about how, well, you know, where were you? I was at a, that was at a Waffle House in Quantico, Virginia. Oh, okay. Yeah. So, but at that time, I was like, actually, you know, I was attending an explosive breacher training at Quantico. You know, that's what I was going through at that time. But the, you know, we're having this breakfast.

And both of us have read the book, The Bear went over the mountain about the Soviet experience in Afghanistan. We knew enough about Vietnam. We have been young lieutenants in the 90s, and we had heard from generals and sergeants major who have been in the Vietnam War, how the United States would never do something like that again. And so Jimmy and I are sitting there day after 9-11 saying how, well, this is not going to involve the conventional Marine Corps.

That there's no way the United States is going to get involved like something like Afghanistan. There's no way we get involved in someplace like Iraq, particularly since the vice president was the guy who, you know, earlier, eight years earlier had said that, or nine years earlier had said that going to Baghdad in the first Iraq war would be a colossal mistake, would be stupid. There's no way we're going to do any type of wars like that. So we're just going to watch and see what happens. And I say that, I tell that story, because there's no underestimating the foolishness,

the recklessness, the a historic arrogance of the American Empire. So at first, when you ask that question, Judge, my first gut response, of course not. There's no way we're going to jump into that quicksand. There's no way we're going to build a base in the midst of the whole of the land and get involved in this conflict, you know, which has been going on for more than 100 years. You know, it makes no sense to do so. But the empire is irrational in terms of what it wants, when it desires, and what it needs. And so this idea of possibly building a base there to what purpose, I don't really. fully understand, but is not something I see as an impossibility, as it should be to anyone

who's rational and reasonable and has any type of historic, you know, who has read any contemporary history would expect it to be. But so this base, whether it's used, Judge, if it comes to fruition, whether it's used just to oversee the International Stabilization Force, whether it's used to house the International Stabilization Force, whether it has American troops there who have to go and patrol into to Gaza and they're hit by IEDs and RPGs just like me and my friends were in Iraq and Afghanistan. That may happen as well. I wonder how the American public will react.

Trump will be out of office by the time Americans come home in body bags. I'm going to guess you're not surprised that the Guardian has reported just late last week that since the ceasefire, which couldn't be more than two months now, 1,500 buildings in Gaza have been demolished by the IDF since the ceasefire. Right. That was, I believe it was October 10th was a ceasefire judge. So it's been barely a month, five weeks. It's not a ceasefire at all.

No, there's been, this was last week. That was reported there were 280 violations by the Israelis of the ceasefire. So tack on another 30 or so much or however many you need to get to the current number. But the Israelis violate the ceasefire 7, 8, 9, 10 times a day. They kill Palestinians every day. Since October 10th, about 270 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since the ceasefire began. Hundreds have been wounded. And among those 1,000 or so Palestinians who have been killed or wounded, hundreds of them have been

children. On one day alone during this ceasefire, the Israelis killed 46 children. So, you know, this idea that this is a ceasefire is, you know, and there are subtitles being generated right now. I hope it's putting ceasefire in italics or it's putting quotes around ceasefire because this is not a ceasefire. This is still the same type of organized, deliberate killing of the Palestinian people because they are a resisting occupation as they have, experience for decades. Maybe not in the scale and the scope of the last two years, but this type of killing by the Israelis of Palestinians is something that has been common to every Palestinian for the last eight decades. Why do American presidents like to kill?

I think it's the imperial prerogative, Judge. I think it's the trappings of the empire. It's the right of an emperor to do so. If there is an affrontage, if there is any type of temerity, if there is any type of disobedience, it has to be met by a level of violence and force that ensures everyone understands who's in control. I think it's no greater an explanation than that. I think it's no more complicated than that. And I think some of them like to kill. And if they don't, as Barack Obama himself said, when he said, it turns out I'm pretty good at killing people, I think they also learned to like it. You know, I'm just probably, I don't know now.

How many times I've brought Das Tyski now, Judge, five, six times? You know, power and blood are intoxicating. And that's what you have here. You have a tyranny that has developed in this American government. The very thing the founders were scared to death of that allows for this type of group force, that allows for this brutalization, that allows for humiliation. of people. I mean, essentially, that's what's being carried out here against the Palestinians is a humiliation. When you're in Palestine, or even when you're in Iraq or in Afghanistan, you talk to those who are part of the resistance or support the resistance, the word they use as humiliation.

That's the word they use over and over again. So this idea that somehow now the Hamas, the Palestinian resistance will be disarmed and foreigners will come in and they will control our country and Donald Trump will be in charge of it all, you know, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, the humiliation is the most galling thing for the Palestinians, right, as is for any people who are occupied, any people who are facing any type of oppression or injustice. And so I think, you know, when you come back to it, it's this idea of furthering that control by the empire, right, furthering that control by the hegemon. And the way you do that is through brute force that ultimately, uh, has its greatest expression in the humiliation, it bestows upon the occupied people.

As we speak, President Trump is embracing Muhammad bin Salman, who, of course, his own CIA, because Jamal Khashoggi was murdered during Trump's first term, his own CIA found that B. Salman ordered the butchering, literally, of Khashoggi inside the Saudi embassy in Istanbul, Turkey. And when asked about this by a reporter in the presence of Muhammad bin Salman, Trump, responded by saying, things happen. Ask me another question. Right. Right. This is a man who, again, remember when he campaigned 10 you know in 2016 he said he could shoot somebody on fifth avenue and still get elected this is a man who uh the reality of other people don't matter uh and i think

he admires the crown prince very much for the crown prince's willingness and ability to do such things i don't think anyone should doubt if don't have the ability to murder journalists he carried out. Later in that press conference, he basically instructed the chair of the FCC to take away ABC's broadcasting license, or at least investigate them with the ultimate goal of taking away their broadcasting license. I think when you look at the people that Donald Trump works with best, it's those who remind him most of himself. And, you know, I mean, there is this admiration, this mutual respect between these despots, but I think what it really comes down to is the transaction, right?

This idea that MBS is sitting there and he tells Donald Trump that the $600 billion that Saudi Arabia was going to invest in the U.S. last year is now going to be a trillion. And that's all Donald Trump cares about. That's all he wants to hear. And so I think what you have there are kindred spirits like minds. And I think if Donald Trump had the ability to be more like the crown prince, he would. I'm sure there's a real estate deal in there somewhere, Matt, for Trump Tower, Riyadh, or wherever else they're going to build it. Meanwhile, as Karen Koukowski calls him, and she's on after you, quick-draw-peat, who calls himself the Secretary of War, is building up a substantial armada outside of Venezuela.

How can they not use that armada? What would it cost to produce the Gerald R. Ford and all the accompanying ships there? What would it cost the Navy just to bring that? There's 10,000 Marines that they're feeding on those ships. The ships themselves, Judge, are $20 billion. You know, when you add the ship plus the air wing, it's $20 billion. I actually was on a cruise this summer, and we were in Marseille. And who was docked next to us?

Who was berth next to us in Marseille? was to Gerald R. Ford. And the only people, I'm sorry? I said, oh my goodness. I didn't realize that a ship like that docked in a civilian port. They do. And they have their liberty call. And the only people on that ship, on my cruise ship,

the only ones who were interested in her, the only ones who are gawking out of taking photos, selfies with them with the ship, everything else, who were in awe of it in celebrating her, were the Americans. The Europeans and the Europeans and the, the Asians on the ship, kind of looked at it and wondered, why do you have such things? And then among the Americans, you know, particularly once I got a fugitive image, I just started,

you know, right, going down this path. But I'd ask the Americans, you know how much she costs? You know, it's $20 billion, about $15 billion for the ship itself and $5 or $6 billion for that airwind. That's just to buy those things. Then alone, the millions and millions of dollars they to operate. And you know, we have 10 more just like her. and you want to wonder why we don't have the same level of health care or education or infrastructure

as other countries do? There's your answer. It's because we're spending trillions and trillions of dollars to maintain a failing empire. I mean, the amount of money that spent on these things is enormous. So to answer your question about whether we would use the Ford because it costs just because it costs so much to keep her there, I don't think so. I think this government, our leadership is so they're so out of touch they're so insane they're so lustful in their greed right whether it be for war or for their own profit that it doesn't matter what it costs because this is what they want if it costs you know tens of millions of dollars a day to keep the Ford and her sister ships there off the coast of Venezuela then so be it that's the cost of showing the flag

that's the cost of gumbo diplomacy that's the cost of running the empire And so this sickness pervades all through Washington, D.C. I mean, you have, you know, Ray McGovern has retitled the military industrial complex as the Mickey Man, which is, let me see if I can do this. The military, industrial, congressional, intelligence, media, academic, technology, and think tank complex. Right. Because that's the reality of a judge. Everybody is getting rich off of this. Everybody is doing incredibly well.

It's just not the weapon. companies that are making obscene profits. It's all those companies that work with the weapons companies, right? So it's the banks. It's the hotels that build the hotels right next to the new buildings these weapons companies are constructing. Right. I mean, this money spreads out. It's the golden era. It's the time to get the goal. We have trillion dollar defense budgets. And the reality is when you it's a self-licking ice ice cream right it's this thing this thing eats itself right and regenerates itself that way so the money gets washed to the weapons industry it goes back into congress congress puts it back into the pentagon the pentagon gives it back to the weapons industry

and it's just this constant cycle and just like a snowball going downhill it grows and so now we have trillion dollar weapons budgets half of that goes directly to the contractors and most most of, and half of what they make every year, these weapons contractors, they don't put back into their manufacturing facilities. They don't put back into their employees. They put it back into dividends. They do stock buybacks. Last year, the weapons companies spent more in buy and stock buybacks in dividends than they did in actual profits, right? They, they had to go into debt. They borrowed money to give money back to their investors. Meanwhile, they're getting essentially half of a trillion dollar a year of budget. This is the type of sickness that pervades not just our government,

but our corporations. And then we, the taxpayers are the ones who are putting into this, let alone the fact that what's the reality of Lockheed and Raytheon and all these other companies putting money back into themselves, just enriching their CEOs and their investors. The reality is that we can only produce 600 Patriot missiles a year. The reality is we can only produce a handful of fad missiles a year. The reality is, that it takes us years upon years to build weapon systems, whether upon their ships or their ground vehicles or their aircraft, that in the end don't work. It's been 50 years since the Army has been able to build a new tank. The F-35 is how many decades old now, and half of them

still can't fly in any given day, right? I mean, so... And the reality is that the empire is collapsing. That's exactly right. So, I mean, it's as we've put our tax dollars into this and as we get suckered as they take from us, Judge, and they fail to invest into things that we need in society like health care, like education, like infrastructure, as people are drowning with the overhead costs of daily life, as people are reliving paycheck to paycheck, etc. Our government is just taking this money and giving it to the corporations. You know, the tagline, the joke about the war in Afghanistan, where we spent more money on reconstruction for Afghanistan

than we did for the entire Marshall Plan following World War II. The joke was that although reconstruction didn't work in Afghanistan, it certainly worked in northern Virginia and Maryland, right? The suburbs of D.C. Whereas we spent $300 million a day for the war in Afghanistan for 20 years, that's where that money went didn't win us a war $300 million a day but it made a lot of people

and a lot of corporations very wealthy sad story but true thank you Matt thanks very much my dear friend and thanks for letting me go across the board from Venezuela to Israel to Virginia and we'll look forward to seeing you next week

thank you Matt all right thanks Josh of course coming up at 3 o'clock full day tomorrow but coming up today at three o'clock colonel karen kutkowski just napal tannel for judging freedom Thank you.