Judging Freedom - Matt Hoh: Israel, Its Own Worst Enemy

Episode Date: August 23, 2024

Matt Hoh: Israel, Its Own Worst EnemySee 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 Friday, August 23, 2024. Matt Ho joins us now. Matt, a pleasure, my dear friend. Thank you. Thank you for joining us. I do want to spend a fair amount of time with you on the topic of, is Israel its own worst enemy? But before that, I want to prevail on your experience as having been in combat and led men in combat. How risky or how brilliant was the invasion, the incursion by the Ukrainians into Kursk in Russia. And who do you think perpetrated it? Judge, I was thinking the other day, and thanks for having me on as always, that if I had to caption your show, explain to people what your show is about,

I would say this show is about Judge Napolitano asking people to rationally explain the actions of the mad and the insane, right? I mean, like- You know who agrees with you? Colonel McGregor. Are we witnessing what's occurring in the Kursk invasion to be an execution of the Nixon-Kissinger madman strategy, right? The madman theory where you act so irrationally, you act so bizarre that you scare the other side into submission. Certainly there is that aspect of what the Ukrainians have done here that maybe you can give them the latitude of saying, hey, fortune favors the brave, right? And so there's that element. But I go back to on this in terms of the political aspects.

And so even though this seems as if they've sacrificed up 10,000 of maybe their best men and equipment in what can be regarded as a political stunt, a demonstration, if you will, the politics of this are so important. And this is all about, if anything, I think this is about the American election in November. That's what the whole purpose of this invasion was. And certainly if we were in Chicago, Judge, and whether we're on the floor with the delegates at the convention, or if we went up in those corporate suites where they were paying, the corporations are paying millions of dollars a day.

If the subject of Ukraine came up, it would automatically be, oh, did you see what the Ukrainians did? Did you see how the Ukrainians surprised everyone? God, we have to keep backing the Ukrainians. Putin is really on his back foot now. And certainly that's the impression mainstream media, including where I used to work for 24 years, is giving. Right. And so the idea being is that we have to keep this war going through November. There's a historical parallel to this, vaguely. But in 1940 in Britain, this was the subject, was the American elections. We have to get through the elections. We have to keep ourselves afloat.

And if people know anything about 1940, Britain was in very bad shape, right? So the idea was that we have to stay alive. We have to stay afloat until the American elections. And we have to hope that FDR wins because if FDR wins, then we'll stay alive. And so I think that's how the Ukrainians are looking at it. It is incredibly cynical to state it like this, but I really can't come to to offer or possibly I don't know how accurate this is. You hear these reports. The Ukrainians are possibly trying to capture the Kirk's nuclear power plant, do like some type of Kelly's hero run to it or something like that. I don't know if I believe that or not, but one of the things that was going on at the time, as The Washington Post reported, were limited talks between Russia and Ukraine at reaching some type of ceasefire deal to not strike each other's energy facilities. So you can kind of see how that would line up, where if that's true about those ceasefire talks, then the Ukrainians holding a Russian nuclear power plant would certainly give them much more sway in those

negotiations. But all of that said, what seems to me be the case is that this was a deliberate attempt to prolong the war by scuttling negotiations. The Ukrainians had to have known that the Russian response was going to be, as we have seen, all right, no negotiations. This ends any prospect of negotiations. And so over this past summer, as we have heard coming from the Ukrainians, as we've heard coming out of Washington, D.C., possibly more of a mission that negotiations have to take place. We just had Volodymyr Zelensky a few weeks ago say that the Russians might be invited to the next so-called peace talks the Ukrainians are going to hold. So by doing this, did that deliberately scuttle any chance for negotiations,

forcing everybody to stay committed to the war? And it also opens up, I think this idea is, I know one of your favorite people, Lindsey Graham, right? Where was Lindsey Graham just a few days after Ukraine's incursion into Russia? He was in Kiev and he was shilling. He was making the case. He was actually, I guess, opening up the FY 2025 foreign war supplemental, because what he was saying is like this invasion, this action by Ukraine, the valiant act of these brave young Ukrainian men taking the fight to Russia shows how we have to get started right now on getting tens of billions dollars more for the Ukrainians so they can fight and win this war. So this is why I just look at it through a political lens. I don't think on the ground, yeah, it's changed things, but not enough

to shift anything where this becomes other than the status quo that has been where neither side can throw a punch to knock the other side out. Ukraine will certainly continue to lose land in the East, but was that the gamble? Was that the risk that Ukraine was willing to take to get this political victory in the sense of this PR stunt? And now everybody in Washington, D.C., with the exception of what, a handful? None of the Democrats and Judge, less than half the Republicans, are fully in agree with continuing this war, this unwinnable proxy war. Let me just stop you for a minute. Chris, do we have the clip of Senator Graham

smiling from ear to ear where he's next to Senator Blumenthal? Okay, if you can find it, we'll run it. What is your view on what our friend and colleague Larry Johnson has said, that because we know that Ukraine intel would never do anything without permission of MI6 and CIA, because we know that Ukrainian military equipment is paid for by the U.S., much of it is operated by American technicians, and we believe there were Americans on the ground, either CIA, civilian contractors, soldiers of fortune, or American military, but out of American military uniforms, another legal issue. Larry argues that from the Kremlin's perspective, the United States of America invaded Russia. Do you accept that argument?

Judge, if I could ask you a question in return, right? If I was in your courtroom and I was accused of paying someone to murder somebody else, and not only did I give him the money, but I gave him the gun, I gave him the address to find this person at, I gave him the man's security code for a security system, I gave him a bone to distract his dog, what would your verdict be about my complicity in that murder? Pretty clear. Absolutely. Yeah.

And there's no other way to look at it. And even if you can get toward it and you can make excuses and apologies for NATO's role in all of this, which I agree completely with Larry about, it doesn't really matter what we say. It's the Russian perception. And this is what so many people in the United States, in our empire at large, continue to fail to get. It matters what the other side sees. It matters what the other side feels. It matters what the other side experiences just as much or maybe even more than what we think it should uh who do you think pulled this off this incursion surely it wasn't the ukrainians alone yeah i i'm hearing more and more that the british are the drivers in this uh but if one thing that our national security establishment does well is it provides

plausible deniability for our top elected officials. And this is basically baked into our 1947 National Security Act. What that means in reality is that it allows for, you can call them rogue if you want, but they're basically sanctioned elements within our military intelligence apparatus to do as they wish. And so certainly the cell that was coordinating, that coordinates this, that coordinates NATO's actions and the U.S. military's actions and the British military actions, and there's some overlap between those and there's some divide between them, they would have been the ones who were providing all of the necessary information to the Ukrainians

to carry out this assault. There's no other way of, you know, without our satellites, how would the Ukrainians had the confidence to know where they were going in terms of the Russian fortifications in the Russian, right? I mean, that's one example. Right. Here's your favorite neighboring United States Senator last week. So two and a half years later, you're still standing and you're in Russia. Remind me not to invade Ukraine. I'm so proud of you, your people, your military, your leadership, your country. You're under siege, unlike anything I've seen in my lifetime.

They were predicting in Washington that Kiev would fall in four days, the whole country fall in three weeks. Well, they were wrong. It's really over the top, like a cat smiling at a bowl of milk. I mean, I don't know where his attitude will take us other than more and more bloodshed. Let's switch gears. Why is there no international outrage at the institutionalized and government-authorized abuse of prisoners, so horrific, torture is an understatement, Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails. Why is it only people like us and the demonstrators outside the DNC this week, our friends, Max Blumenthal and company, that seem to be complaining about this? This is repellent

to any normal moral human being. This is the construct. This is the infrastructure, the media infrastructure in which we exist, right? So it's difficult for voices to be heard. It's not profitable for people like us to say these types of things. We get pushed to the fringes, if you will. Internationally, there is the outcry. There is this increasing isolation of Israel, which of course is, as we've talked about before, hastening the decline of the overall American empire, right? But here in the United States, certainly you see the victory of the Israeli lobby in controlling American Middle East policies, irrespective of the genocide we witness every day on our phones, on our computer screens, on our televisions, as well as to actually the will of the American people. And I think we may be a little too hard

on ourselves, George, because if you look at some of the polling that has come out over this last summer, you see a real shift in American attitudes towards Israel. So there's a poll this month by the Chicago Council of Global Affairs that found 56 percent of Americans do not want the United States military to fight alongside the Israelis. I think a year ago, that number would have been flipped. Only 42% of Americans say they want the United States military to go fight alongside the Israelis. Five years ago, that would have been, they would have had to redo the study because it would have been wrong. You know what I mean? So I think we are having an effect. And if we're having that effect, where you're seeing this, this this is what scares you. And this is why they banned you for YouTube for a week. And from what I understand, Max and the folks at Grayzone got banned while on YouTube, while while filming in if you saw this, Judge, did you see Stephen Colbert about a week or two

ago? He had some correspondent from CNN on his late show on CBS, and he made a comment about CNN being an unbiased and objective news reporting organization. All they do is report the facts. And it wasn't meant as a joke. His audience burst out laughing. Right. I mean, so that just is kind of an anecdote that shows where all this is going. If 56% of Americans, again, huge reversal in American attitudes towards Israel. If 56% of Americans are saying they don't want the U.S. military to defend Israel. Meanwhile, we have total control or near total control of, I will say total control, actually, because it's so minuscule, whatever resistance there is against the Israel lobby's preferences in our government. Total control of the US government by Israel with regards to

Middle East policy, as well as the American major media, the American corporate media or national media. Yet 56% of Americans are saying this, this shows the power of what you're doing, what people like Max Blumenthal, Aaron Maté, Aaron Parampil are doing. And this is what scares them. Because if Americans have these attitudes, they have this understanding of what's occurring in Gaza, what's occurring in Palestine, what's occurring in the region, even though what they're hearing in near unanimity from their political leaders and their media is Israeli talking points, again, it shows the power of this type of independent media. And this is why I urge everybody who's

watching this to do what they can to support people like the judge and to continue to develop and grow out this independent media so that we can continue to understand what's really happening in the world and then as informed citizens actually act on it. Here's an example of Israeli diplomacy at its worst. This isy dannen who is the former israeli ambassador to the u.n now some sort of a roving international ambassador i'm not going to believe what he says but it's in english you'll hear it in just a moment yesterday uh at the security council the representative of the Palestinian Authority is still here. He has been sitting in that chair for 20 years. You have accomplished absolutely nothing.

Since October 7th, you have delivered hundreds of speeches, yet you have never uttered anything even resembling a condemnation of Hamas. Mr. Mansour, if you cannot condemn them, you are one of them. You do not represent the Palestinian people. Mr. Mansour, you are a terrorist in a suit. I demand you to condemn Hamas. If you do not condemn them, you are one of them. Now, you have testified before the Security Council. Have you ever seen or heard of such a personal attack like that? I mean, if that were said from one U.S. senator to another U.S. senator,

the speaker would be subject to an ethics investigation and discipline. That's just not permitted on the floor of civilized assemblies. That's essentially Israeli diplomacy through and throughout. I witnessed him up close. And Judge, if you or I were standing in a coffee shop and that guy was in line next to you, you'd move away because he's, I think, legitimately deranged. And that's what, look historically at these types of murderous regimes, these regimes that commit genocide and their leadership is staffed. It's populated with people that are rightly called deranged. What you also have, though, and this is where I thought you were going, I thought you were going to make a joke

by saying Israeli diplomacy and then show a photo of Tony Blinken or something like that. Right. You know, but then at the same time, what you have is you have Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the American ambassador to the United Nations, who, although she is not as vitriolic, her rhetoric is not as pitched or steeped in the biting language, to be polite, of what the Israeli ambassador is saying, it's still all there. And so where the Israeli ambassador will throw out accusations, you are Hamas, the way the passive aggressive nature, which is the chief defining feature of the American State Department, its passive aggressiveness. I've never been part of anything more passive aggressive than the U.S. State Department. But the way Thomas Greenfield approaches it is by saying, along the lines that you're not doing enough, just gaslighting,

lying, saying it's the Palestinians' fault, there's no ceasefire, even has her boss, the Secretary of State, goes out and lies to the world, lies so clearly to the world, lies in a way that is so remarkable that senior officials within Israel are actually speaking to the Israeli press about how just disingenuous and just how much Blinken's press conference at the beginning of this week in Israel was just one total shamble of lies. Here is Secretary of State Blinken, whom Professor Mearsheimer has nicknamed Netanyahu's lawyer. Here is Secretary Blinken just three days ago. Cut number nine. The United States does not accept any long-term occupation of Gaza by Israel.

Um, more specifically, the agreement is very clear on the schedule and the locations of IDF withdrawals from Gaza, and Israel has agreed to that. So that's as much as I know. That's what I'm very clear about. Again, I'm not going to get into the details of the agreement, but it is laid out in the agreement, an agreement that Israel has endorsed, and it is specific as to the locations and the schedule for withdrawals. I don't know who could believe anything that he says. Ambassador Freeman says this is the least reputable American State Department in the post-World War II era. And it's very interesting that you say the Israelis themselves don't even believe everything

that he says. But the Israelis themselves, certainly Prime Minister Netanyahu and the people that are calling the shots, do not want a ceasefire, because every time they put something on the table, they know Hamas will not accept it. And every time Hamas accepts what's on the table, they add another condition to it that they know Hamas will not accept it. Why? The secretary is saying the agreement, the agreement, the agreement. There is no agreement. Right. The willingness to just move the goalpost, you know, is just shows a remarkable. And then they're willing to lie for it, lie about it. You know, and this is this was referenced continually throughout the Democratic

National Convention when speaker after speaker, interviewee after interviewee, if they were asked about the ceasefire process, they would say, well, look, you know, we have presented to Hamas yet again another ceasefire proposal that reflects, they'll say things like that reflects or is consistent with the principles of President Biden's proposal back in May. You know, that's, of course, just Orwellian language to hide the fact that what was given to the Hamas, which they accepted, was then pulled back. And they were presented with another proposal with things that were just certainly unacceptable to Hamas, such as the permanent stationing, essentially, of Israeli forces within Gaza. I mean, so there's a lack of integrity there, to Ambassador Freeman's point, that permeates, that defines, I would say, the entire State Department. You know, I saw the clip that really poignant, really beautiful, if I can use that word to describe it, exchange between you and Larry Johnson regarding Hin Rajab, the six-year-old girl who the Israelis machine gun 300 times more than six months ago now. And in that discussion,

you know, the eloquence and I think that the compassion you both displayed as well as the righteous discussed. But reflecting upon this, look, if Matt Miller or Vendant Patel, who is Matt Miller, the spokesperson for the State Department, Vendant Patel, his deputy, you know, if the Archangel Gabriel or the Holy Mother was to intercede and come to them and get them to realize what they are doing and then they quit. And in the morning, the State Department sent out an email saying Matt Miller has had a crisis of conscience. We need someone to come down to the press room and lie to the American people in the world about our support for the genocide in Gaza. I'm not being, you know, I'm not being exaggerated here, Judge. Within 10 minutes, I know that building. You would have at least 100 people down there willing to do that job. You're going to enjoy it, 100 people quitting. We've had a handful of people quitting. One of the people who quit, Stacey Gilbert, back in April or May, she quit from the State Department because she had put together, along with a team, they had looked at what was occurring in terms of

the humanitarian crisis, Israel's creation of maintenance of the Samaritarian crisis in Gaza. And they wrote a report and it went up, went up the ladder, went up to, you know, and when it came back to them, it had been completely just undone. It had been, you know, lies with their information was, was pulled out and lies have been inserted. And Stacey Gilbert resigned rightfully. Great for her. Glad she did it. How many other people didn't resign? More importantly, how much of a fight was it to get, you know, in terms of people fighting

over to get into Stacey's chair after she resigned? Right. You know, and this is what we're feeling. This is the Leviathan that we are up against, Judge. This is the reality of the empire, that it is a system, it is comprehensive, and it's self-reinforcing so that it can continually populate itself, even when it does have rejections coming from the inside, it's ultimately meaningless in terms of how the empire continues to move forward. Alistair Crook quotes the former director of Mossad as having said recently that

Israel is a racist and violent state that cannot survive. I assume the quote is accurate, as incendiary as it is. Do you think Netanyahu is in danger of a coup? I don't think so, Judge. Certainly a sentiment is there, and I can understand how people see that as a possibility. But I think the IDF, which is where that would come from, from what most people when they speak about this reference, understand that this would create a civil war in Israel, that the split, that that will occur, that the righteous fervor, the religious fanaticism that defines Netanyahu's governing coalition, the right wing of Israel, even though the whole country essentially is right wing,

we're kind of ridiculous here in our descriptions. But that includes three quarters of a million armed settlers in the occupied territories. They're not going to allow for something to happen without a fight. They would, they would, they would, how they would interpret it, the religious aspect of this apartheid government, now it's their crook, is entirely correct because an apartheid government is one that is inherently racist and has to be violent. You know, the idea being is that these religious fanatics that define so much Israeli government and Israeli society, what they would go back and say, look, this is what God wants. This is what happened to our people 2000 years ago. This is what happened when our kingdom was shorn apart from the inside.

We fought each other. I mean, so they would find meaning in it. I mean, so you could just see how this would explode into some kind of civil war. And for that reason, because they wouldn't have a public support, I don't think you would see a coup as we would typically define it. Could there be something softer possibly? I don't know.

You know, I mean, would they even be able to get that Yahoo out of the bunker? He's been hiding him for the last two weeks. Who knows, you know, but certainly that the, the, the, the truth of what you're in for the last two weeks. Who knows? But certainly the truth of what you're saying, though, Judge, is there, that there is a fracture. What bound Israeli society

together was this hatred for the Palestinians, this fear of the Palestinians, this understanding as Menachem Begin described the Palestinians as beasts that walk upon two legs. And this is what the Israeli people have been taught. This is what they have lived. This is what they believe. And now they got it. They got it with Gaza. And so it was tying them together has now been undone because they got the prize. They got this chance to ethnically cleanse the Palestinians in a manner they hadn't had in more than 50 years. And that undoing, that unbinding of their connection has caused this fracture, this split, this tension to appear. And this is something I think, as you said, when we started this episode, is zero destroying itself? Yes, this is what they are reaping what they have sown.

Matt Ho, thank you very much, my dear friend. No matter what we talk about, love your analysis and the articulate way in which you project it. All the best, my friend. We'll see you again next week. Thanks, Judge. Of course. Coming up later this afternoon at three o'clock Eastern, Colonel Larry Wilkerson, and at 345 Eastern, the boys, the Intelligence Community Roundtable, Larry Johnson and Ray McGovern. Judge Napolitano for judging freedom. Thank you.