Judging Freedom - Matt Hoh: US Pays for More Gaza Genocide

Episode Date: February 25, 2025

Matt Hoh: US Pays for More Gaza GenocideSee 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, February 25th, 2025. Matt Ho is here with us today on the United States is still funding genocide in Gaza. But first this. Markets are at an all-time high. Euphoria has set in. The economy seems unstoppable. But the last administration has buried us so deep in debt and deficits, it's going to take a lot of digging to get us out of this hole. Are you prepared? Lear Capital specializes in helping people like me and you grow and protect our wealth with gold. Did you know that during Trump's last presidency,

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Matt Hull, welcome here, my dear friend. Thank you for your time, as always. Is there any military reason why the United States sent bombs to Israel that weigh 22,000 pounds each, so large, so heavy that the Israelis don't even have planes to lift them up off the ground and drop them? Thanks for having me back on, Judge. Yeah, you're talking about the Moabs, the mother of all bombs, which really don't have much of a use militarily. They're airburst munitions that are designed to destroy structures and people on the ground. They would have no effect against Hamas's tunnels. They certainly have no effect against Iran's hardened structures where they have their nuclear research facilities or their key personnel underground or within mountains in their bunkers.

These things, as you said, are so big that the only thing the Israelis could use to drop them would be a C-130 cargo aircraft, which could easily be shot down by the Iranians, easily shot down by Hezbollah possibly. Now, Hamas probably can't shoot down those C-130s. And so the idea, the spectacle of it, using these massive bombs to push Palestinians out of areas that the Israelis want. So it's a weapon of terror. It's designed for a terror campaign. And so my understanding of how these bombs would be utilized, if they're utilized at all,

would be to be utilized against Palestinian people, against the population, in order to terrorize them. So I guess Donald Trump's proclamation that he's a president of peace applies to Ukraine, but not to Gaza. You know, it's Donald Trump, Judge, I think most people would agree is a comedic version of Orwell in the sense his words often have the wrong meanings or the meanings are upside down or turned inside out. You know, Trump wants what's best for the Israelis. Trump wants what's best for himself, of course. And so he sees what's best for the Israelis as being what's best for himself. He's surrounded by people that are Zionists, certainly his support from the Zionists for his campaign.

Miriam Adelson being the chief example of that, giving over $100 million to his campaign last year, but just one of only many examples. But, you know, he has stated, he's clearly stated, he related it again just a few days ago, that Netanyahu and this Israeli government has his full support and blessing. And so whatever the Israelis want to carry out, Trump views that as being in his best interest as well. So President Biden signed an executive order, you can't even articulate it with a straight face, prohibiting the American government from selling or causing to be delivered weapons into the hands of those who would use them for other than humanitarian purposes. This obviously wasn't enforced because of all that he gave to Israel. Trump ostentatiously rescinded that order. For what purpose? I don't know what the...

I mean, the order was never followed under the Biden years. The federal, the order was superfluous because federal statutes already prohibit that. Judge, exactly. It'd be like picking out some arcane piece of legislation from the 19th century and now annulling it, something that hadn't been utilized in 150 years. This idea that somehow the United States had been obeying that executive order, let alone the three or four different federal laws that I'm aware of, as well as subsections of laws or international treaties that we belong to that prohibit the use of American weapons in human rights violations.

I mean, not just Biden, every president in the modern era has violated those federal laws. So as well as, again, the international treaties that we are part of, which according to our constitution are the law of our land. So I don't know why he chose to do that. are part of, which according to our constitution are the law of our land. So I don't know why he chose to do that. But I mean, certainly it may be just to make a point, you know, speculating here, it may to make a point, may to put an exclamation mark on the understanding that the Palestinians are not people and the Israelis can do whatever they want. Maybe it's for some reason he's got a lawyer in the White House who thinks this is a good idea just to preclude any lawsuits against him.

We just saw the NGO Dawn just yesterday provided over a thousand pages of documents, I believe, to the International Criminal Court asking the International Criminal Court to investigate Joe Biden, Tony Blinken, and Lloyd Austin as war criminals. So perhaps it's something to avoid a similar fate, although the dangers of such prosecution are negligible. So I don't know why he brought it up, why they're making it a news item, but because they're going to do, as you said, Judge, whatever they want to do. Is Benjamin Netanyahu, in your view, determined to wreck the ceasefire or to reintroduce violence and genocide under some pretext? Yes, absolutely, Judge. And I think that's been the consensus of all of us who

come on your program, that it's just a question of when Israel resumes its military operations in Gaza. By military operations, of course, I mean a genocide, but also as well to Israel's campaigns in Lebanon. Now we've seen over the weekend Israel's statements regarding Syria, where they have said, the Israelis have said, the only military allowed south of Damascus and Syria is the Israeli military. And so you can see the Israelis strengthening their position in Syria, as well as trying to pursue unrest in Syria by trying to divide the Druze people from the rest of Syria. But this resumption of the genocide in Gaza, again, it's always been a question of when, not if. I think for Netanyahu and his cabinet,

the political question has been, how many hostages is enough? How many hostages can we get back before we start to begin or before we renew the genocide? In a sense of how many of our people do we need to have back home in order to placate the political dissent, the political unrest in this country over the hostages? And how many do we need to leave in Gaza to allow us to have a causes belli, right? A reason for a renewed war, right? So there is this balancing act in Israel, I think, of how many do we get back and say we got our people back versus how many do we leave there in order to allow us to claim the right to begin the genocide again. And I think we're getting closer and closer to that moment. Here is Steve Witkoff, who's without portfolio.

He's not confirmed by the Senate. He doesn't have an official government job, but he's the president's emissary, saying we have to extend the ceasefire and I'll be in Israel next Wednesday, tomorrow. He since has canceled that trip. But here's what he said about the ceasefire. Chris, cut number five. We have to get an extension of phase one. And so I'll be going into the region this week, probably Wednesday, to negotiate that. And we're hopeful that we have the proper time to finish off, to begin phase two and finish it off and get more hostages released and move the discussion forward. Do you think that Trump will just say to Netanyahu, no more violence, or A, he can't control Netanyahu, or B, if Netanyahu does bring the IDF back into Gaza, Trump will back him up publicly and with military support?

I think it's the latter, Judge. Yeah, letter C there. I think that's been the case. Again, Trump has said he will support whatever Netanyahu decides to do. And it will be couched, of course, in the terms that Hamas violated the ceasefire. So all the blame will be put on Hamas. The reality of the ceasefire violations, almost all of them coming from Israel,

more than 100 Palestinians killed by the Israelis during the ceasefire. Just in the last 24 hours or so, six Palestinian children, including newborns, have died of hyperthermia because Israel is not allowing in tents, mobile homes, generators, heavy equipment, all the things that the Palestinian people need, not just to rebuild, but just to survive, particularly during this cold, wet time of year. And all the blame, though, will be put on the Palestinians, just looking for an excuse to lay blame on them. And then, of course, I think what you'll hear is even though Witkoff is saying a mighty strong line now of commitment to a ceasefire in a week, two weeks, a month from now, whenever the ceasefire is dead and over and the

genocide has begun again, it will be Hamas ruined it and the Israelis had to go back in. Here's Witkoff also on Sunday. Apparently he was on nearly all the Sunday talk shows. So this is a different interview. But to me, what he says here makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. But I invite your comments. Chris, number six. The May 27th protocol agreement signed last May 27th sets forth that

the phase two negotiation is much about two things. A permanent ceasefire, a cessation of all violence. And in addition to that, the fact that Hamas cannot be allowed to come back into the government. And I think the way you square that circle is that Hamas has to go. They've got to leave. And we're going to, the negotiation will be around that. I would say physically, that's correct. Where would they go? Has any country offered to take them in?

Well, I think the devil is in the details. And we've had a lot of discussions around it. I'm not at liberty to have that specific discussion today, but we've got some ideas. Our friends, Professors Mearsheimer and Sachs, are the progenitors of a theory called realism. How unrealistic is this, that Hamas would voluntarily leave Gaza? Right. Well, you know, I mean, the reality is, Judge, is that Hamas has said it will step aside from power.

It has said this continually over the last year. If Wyckoff or his people watched Al Jazeera, if they read Middle East Eye, if they read Haaretz, they would know this. And this is where you get into that question, right? Do they just not know these things? Does Wyckoff not know these things or does he simply not care? You know, and it's probably maybe a mix of the two actually. But Hamas will step aside if there is a Palestinian state.

They won't step aside and leave the poor Palestinian people defenseless in the face of a voracious Netanyahu. Right. Absolutely. You know, and that's, you know, and even say, say Judge Steve Witkoff finds a magic wand, right? And he's able to make Hamas disappear. And the Hamas leadership and its membership goes away. They evaporate. They go to Mars, wherever. The reality is that Hamas in name doesn't matter. The significance is the resistance, that Hamas right now is the manifestation of resistance to Israeli occupation. So until you address this problem, the main and legitimate and overwhelming grievance of the Palestinian people, that they are being occupied, that they are suffering, they are being oppressed, that their grandparents, their parents,

and now they themselves have been put under the thumb of atrocity after atrocity. Until you address that, you are going to have resistance to Israel, regardless of what you call it. You could call it whatever name you want to come up with, and it will still be there. And this is what I worry about. Does a guy like Witkoff actually understand that? That Hamas is simply just a symptom. It's a manifestation of the resistance to the illegal and oppressive Israeli occupation. And again, I'm worrying that he doesn't even get that. How do you read Witkoff? I mean, he's American, he's Jewish, he's a Zionist, he's fabulously rich, he's a longtime friend, personal friend, business collaborator with Donald Trump. He can't be an

intermediary. On the other hand, it appears that he twisted Netanyahu's arm behind his back because the Israelis eventually accepted a plan which they had rejected seven months earlier under the Biden administration. And he's a busy man, Judge. He doesn't just have this portfolio. He has the Ukraine. He's involved with the Ukraine-Russia negotiations, the larger Russian negotiations, as well as potentially negotiations with Iran. He may not be going to Israel next week because potentially, here I speculate, maybe he's going to Iran. I have no idea if that's the case, but it could happen, right?

I mean, so it's a good thing that there is somebody who is talking to our, quote, enemies, unquote. And I think people would agree you could put the Israelis in that category historical metaphysical aspects of what's occurring in these conflicts, right? He is a man who has been successful through business, and he's always able to get one transaction done after another, like his boss, Donald Trump, because of the structures within which they operate. But here now they are dealing with things larger than business contracts, larger than bank and financial transactions, right? Larger than real estate plots. They're dealing with a metaphysical aspect of history, which is not going to be overcome, which is not going to be outdone by paying large sums of money or hiring the right lawyers or just waiting out somebody,

you know, for them to retire. You know. All the things that made them successful commercially can be applied to a degree in this realm, but there's so many other aspects to this that he seems to be ignorant of that I think eventually his success is going to run into. What's happening in the West Bank as we speak? Has the IDF for the first time, and I don't know how long you would know this better than I, put tanks on the ground? They have for the first time in 20 years. And they're focusing the IDF as Israel begins its annexation of the West Bank.

They're focusing on four major urban areas, the Jenin, Narsham, and Tokaram refugee camps, as well as the city of Nablus. I was actually just in Nablus back in November. And so today watching the video coming out of Nablus of the armored bulldozers destroying the city, you know, you feel that. You feel that. And the reality is that we're seeing is that Israel is focusing on the parts of the West Bank that have historically been the center's not just resistance, but of armed resistance. And what they're doing is they're

massively displacing the population. At least 40,000 people have been forcibly removed from their homes. The Israelis have said they are never going back to those homes. The Israelis are busy destroying Palestinian infrastructure, excuse me, at the same time building Israeli infrastructure. So they're busy throughout the West Bank, particularly in the north and central parts, as far as I can understand, building roads, allowing their military to move, allowing the settlers to move. But also too, roads, you know, Judge, roads can connect people, but they can also divide people. And so these roads essentially demarcating new territories within the West Bank, new territories for the Israelis to occupy and that the Palestinians

are forbidden to be on, forbidden, of course, to be on their own land. So the Israelis certainly, I think what occurred was that this deal we were just speaking of, that Donald Trump was made with Netanyahu, I don't think there was much arm twisting by Witkoff of Netanyahu. I think it was promises. Because the way the Israelis are conducting themselves, whether it's on the verge of canceling the ceasefire and renewing the genocide in Gaza, the annexation, like we're seeing occurring in parts of the West Bank, but also to their violation, the ceasefire in Lebanon, their continued military operations there, as well as essentially de facto annexing large parts of Syria. Over the weekend, the Israelis said the only military that's allowed in southern Syria, south of Damascus, is Israeli military.

Well, wait a minute, but that's a separate sovereign country. Exactly, Judge. So if you, I mean, the definition of a state, right, is the monopoly of armed force, of the monopoly on armed violence. And so when you apply that to southern Syria, who is the state then in southern Syria at this point? It's Israel. And so we're witnessing quite a, we're in quite a revolutionary period, whether it's what Donald Trump is doing domestically, what's occurring overseas, whether it's the fact

that you just had the incoming chancellor of Germany, the largest economy in Europe, say his priority is independence from the United States. We're in a revolutionary period here. And I recall what Lenin said, Vladimir Lenin, not John Lenin, that over decades, nothing happens. But sometimes during weeks, decades happen. And I feel that that's what we're seeing right now, that six months from now, we might be in an entirely different world order. Thank you, Matt. The very, very gloomy, sad picture. I mean, why does Trump do all of this?

Because of Miriam Adelson and the donor class in the United States? That's a lot to it, Judge. I mean, there's a lot to it that certainly you can look back and look at what he said about Palestine, Israel in 2015, before he was among the top contenders for the Republican nominee for the presidency, when everyone was still laughing at him and mocking at him and saying he had no chance. At that point, he expressed more of a neutral tone toward Palestine and Israel. But now, certainly, he has that relationship with the Israel lobby, with the donor class that supports Israel in this way. by people that are Zionists, whether it be his son-in-law, whether it be his incoming FBI director, which will be a huge problem on the civil liberties front going forward. You know, when your incoming FBI director said a couple of months ago that the United States needs to

prioritize Israel, as if the Biden administration and every previous president hadn't been prioritizing Israel. But I think he also, he likes Israel's use of force, I think. I think he likes Israel's dominance. I think he likes Israel's attitude towards human rights, their attitude toward the Palestinians, how they simply don't care, how they see those things as beneath them. And that is, you know, I think similar to how he views himself. I mean, this man calls himself a king, right? I mean, which is I don't know if we've ever had a president ever do that, which is I don't want to get into how upset that makes me.

But the reality is, I think what he sees in Israel is what he sees in himself. And I think that may be why he's so supportive of Israel, as well as for those other more pedestrian transactional reasons. Matt Ho, thank you very much, my dear friend. No matter what we talk about, it's a pleasure to be able to pick your brain and explore your insight. Much appreciated. We'll see you again next week. Thanks, Judge. All the best. Coming up at three o'clock this afternoon, right here, Lieutenant Colonel Karen Kwiatkowski, Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom. Thanks for watching!