Judging Freedom - Matt Hoh: Why Haniyeh Was Murdered

Episode Date: August 6, 2024

Matt Hoh: Why Haniyeh Was MurderedSee 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, August 6th, 2024. Matt Ho will be with us in just a moment on why is it that the Israelis murdered the chief Hamas peace negotiator? Are they into negotiating for peace? But first this. You all know that I am a paid spokesperson for Lear Capital, but I'm also a customer, a very satisfied customer. About a year ago, I bought gold and it's now increased in value 23%. So $100 invested in gold a year ago is now worth $123. You have $100 in the bank. It still shows $100, but $100 in the bank is now worth 24% less. Inflation has reduced all of your savings all of your buying power and mine by 24 percent and gold

is largely immune from that if you want to learn how gold will soon hit 3200 an ounce call lear capital 800-511-4620 or go to learjudsnap.com. Get your free gold report. Same experts who predicted the 23% rise that I've enjoyed have predicted this $3,200 an ounce gold. Learn about how to transfer this to an IRA. Protect your savings. 800-5114620, learjudgenap.com. Tell them the judge sent you. Matt Ho, a pleasure, my dear friend. Welcome back to the show, as always. Thank you for all your time, particularly these regular weekly segments. Do you think we can conclude from Israel's assassination of the chief Hamas negotiator that Netanyahu has no serious interest in negotiating for a ceasefire. Judge, if this was a movie and the king sent off his emissary and the emissary's head came back in a basket, would we need to have a narrator explain to us what's going on here. I mean, the boldness in this, the arrogance in this execution

of the lead negotiator for Hamas and presumably, or possibly I should say, for the Palestinians as a whole, because what this comes right after, this assassination comes right after, is a successful effort by the Chinese diplomatically to get the various Palestinian factions, there's about 15 of them, of which Hamas is one, to unify, to sign an agreement of working together, essentially. I mean, so Hanaya's assassination comes literally just days after that. So it shouldn't, I think, just be looked at a refutation of any desire for a settlement or a ceasefire in Gaza. But it goes back to what Netanyahu nearly a year ago himself was demonstrating when he went to the General Assembly for the United Nations last September, just weeks before October 7th, he held up a map of the Middle East. And Israel was an expanded Israel, it was a greater Israel, it was an Israel that blotted out, that had absorbed,

that had next Palestine, had made Palestine, wasn't there anymore. And so this is what that means. It's just not for Gaza, just not for the genocide continuing, but the overall Zionist greater Israel project of destroying and absorbing and annexing all of Palestine, as well as possibly parts of Lebanon, maybe parts of the Sinai again, parts of Syria, Jordan, etc. What you've just said is so rational, is such a fair deduction and conclusion from the events surrounding his assassination. Doesn't the United States understand that? Doesn't the State Department understand that? Don't they know that they have been taken for fools by Netanyahu? There he is, holding up the map. Good move, Chris. Thank you. That's Netanyahu. Put it back up again,

please, Chris. That is Netanyahu at the UN. There you go. If you're focusing on Israel, you will see it is from the river to the sea, all the way up and all the way down. Back to my question. Doesn't the State Department understand what you just said, that they've been taken for a fool to be fools by Netanyahu? If they think that he is seriously involved in negotiations? I don't think anyone there believes it. I think they have a desire. They live lives, these political lives where the ends justify the means. expressed yesterday, calling on all sides of the Middle East to calm down and to knock it off, like you would if you went into a room of a bunch of kindergartners who are running amok.

You know, willingness to do that, to debase themselves, to embarrass themselves, to humiliate our entire nation. They see there's a benefit for them. There's a self-interest in this. They see themselves as loyal servants of the empire as well. And this is what you have to do. You have to advance the cause of the empire. And if truth is the first casualty, if you need to surround your efforts, what your country is doing with a bodyguard of lies, that's what you do. And so that's who these men and women are. They're, they're, they're, we've used this phrase before, they're crackpot realists, they're fabulous, they're fantasists, but they are also extremely conniving, extremely cynical, quite shrewd, and motivated to a point of self-interest that they more more than not probably fall uh into the categorization of psychopaths the um musad released to its favorite

reporters at the new york times a fantastic story about how this guy was killed that in fact they planted the bomb there two months ago and their Intel is so good they knew exactly what room he was in and when he went to bed Alistair Crook has a friend who was in the building in the guest house when this happened and said it was a missile from outside that tore down in the exterior wall where this fellow's room was at 3 15 in the morning the times still stands uh by uh their story so you're right when you say this is lie after lie upon lie it it burns me that the government that we elect, that is supposedly transparent and responsive to our wishes, is so beholden to Israel that it will accept anything that comes out of Netanyahu's mouth,

no matter how illogical it might be. Recently, there is, of course, this tragedy in Israel of these nine IDF soldiers who raped a Palestinian young man, literally sexually raped him, and then put other things into his body, which they couldn't remove, which had to be removed by surgery. This was reported to IDF superiors by the surgeons who were scandalized by what they saw. The nine were arrested, and then a mob broke into the jail twice and set them free, in part because Mr. Ben-Gavir's security forces looked the other way. Is Israel close to a domestic turmoil? Can a society last very long that behaves this way? I think, George, if you kind of go back to what you're just saying about, you know, objectively looking at this and deducing, knowing the context, knowing the background,

working with what the facts are available, that's certainly the conclusion you come up with. I mean, you had on the Knesset floor, the members of parliament, members of Knesset, arguing that Israeli soldiers have a right to rape Palestinians. And not as publicized as this, but in the last day or two, B'Tselem, the Israeli human rights organization, published their report on what's going on in these prison camps. And they define them essentially as torture camps, as every Palestinian who is going into these camps who are taken by the Israelis, most of them without charge, are going to be tortured, and they're going to be dehumanized, and they're going to be degraded, so on and so forth.

The idea of how did it get to this point? And you see other fractures occurring within Israel, taking the point of the Israeli ultra-Orthodox now being ordered by the court to have to go into the Israeli army. And their rabbi saying this is not going to happen. We saw some protests, I believe, yesterday already about this. So you have various parts of Israel that are coming undone because the tension that was used to keep them together has been so great. It's caused them to all splinter off now. In addition, you have the

very real exhaustion on the Israeli army, Ynet, an Israeli media, online media website connected with an Israeli newspaper that whose name I won't try and pronounce. But, you know, they reported the Israeli military has taken 10,000 casualties since October in Gaza, including 700 killed. But 10,000 casualties, so more than 9,000 wounded, on as small of an army as Israel's, that is very much dependent upon reserve manpower, that's a lot of casualties. Plus the exhaustion of stocks and stores and spare parts. You couple that with people, about roughly a couple hundred thousand Israelis who are still not back in their homes, who've either evacuated the South or the North,

maybe about 150, maybe even 200,000 Israelis. I have a population of what, seven or eight million. And then you've got this economy that just keeps bleeding out, keeps bleeding out. We could do like a whole show on that essentially. And so you put all that together, Judge, and you say, and looking at the way you have this messianic style leadership, this maniacal leadership, hell bent on proving, you know, vindicating themselves and their own personal journey as part of like this larger historical event being a as Tolstoy would call him a hero of history Netanyahu leading this country into war trying to do everything he can to assemble and put together align all the stars so that war is what they get and they certainly have done that even the timing politically there is not a worse time possible than what we're seeing right now in regards to American leadership with regards to Israel and this coming regional war in the Middle East.

Whether it is the fact we have a lame duck president, to put it politely, as well, or two major party candidates for president who are just going to compete to make sure that they don't fall out of favor of Israel, try and get as much campaign money as possible. This is the worst time politically that we could be in, in terms of this coming regional war in the Middle East. The Knesset also debated whether or not it should be lawful for summary to have to conduct summary executions of Palestinian prisoners without charge, without trial, without conviction on the theory that they need more beds. Now beds to them are box springs without mattresses where these people are naked and blindfolded and wrapped in a diaper and spread-eagled and chained. That's what a bed is to them. And these are the rioters breaking into a jail to break out the IDF soldiers, which, of course, after the second break-in, they succeeded. It's depraved, Matt.

It's absolutely depraved. I wonder if the resistance... Actually, before I ask you this question about the resistance, I want to play a clip from someone who may very well be a leader of the resistance, who is the foreign minister of Turkey. I don't see it, Chris. Play the first version, the shortened version of the Turkish foreign minister.

It is no longer acceptable for America to try to sweep aside and mitigate every evil Israel does. Let them heed our warnings. I say this as the children of the region, as the people of the region. The emotional atmosphere the region is going through, the psychological state of the people, the images of massacres they see on the screen every day, the fact that no help is being extended to the helpless Palestinians, and in the face of this, Muslim countries are constantly being lectured on other unnecessary issues, has long since exceeded the limits of tolerance in terms of democracy and human rights. Has long since exceeded the limits of tolerance in terms of democracy and human rights. Is the resistance

about to calculate and do something collectively? You would expect they will. Certainly that's what they should do. I imagine they will. Certainly when you talk about this, it's and we just saw five American soldiers wounded in Iraq yesterday by a rocketbollah, the Yemenis, the Palestinians, the Iranians, the Iraqis, etc., are all sitting there with headsets on and plugged on the computers? I don't know. But certainly just the ability to coordinate in a sense of massing their fires. fires, you know, you probably let, you know, even if it's just as simple as that, that's enough to overwhelm and exhaust potentially the Israeli air defense system, which is very much dependent upon American air defenses, as well as some other nations, Britain, Jordan, et cetera. So certainly the outlier in all this, the point you were bringing up, Judge, about Turkey is, you know, that's the

question that's hanging out there. What will the Turks do? And what will the Turks, if not now, what will they do in the future? And we have to remember that if we don't get a war tomorrow, we don't get a war in six weeks, nothing has changed to take the circumstances away from the fact that war is coming. It's really easy to say, Judge, look, 110 years ago, August 1914, same situation as now. And there's a lot of parallels. But we also have to remember that there were horrendous things that led up to 1914. You know, the Balkans War kills hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people in the years prior to World War I. And that is, you can't pull those two apart.

And so is that what we're seeing here? Are we seeing just the battles or the smaller wars that lead up to the larger war? And something that you and I have spoken about, very concerned about, where does this go in terms of nuclear proliferation? Because if the only thing that is keeping, excuse me thing that is keeping the Turks out of this, the Turks from sending their F-16s to fly over Lebanon, from getting Erdogan calling up Assad and say, hey, I'm marching 100,000 of my guys through Western Syria. We're not going to stop. Don't worry. We're going south into Lebanon. If the only things that keeping those things from happening are the support of the American empire and nuclear

weapons held by Iran, well, the Turks can certainly get nuclear weapons if they want. And if you're the Turks as well, and you're looking at the American empire, as it declines, it diminishes, a US military that is vastly overextended. We've got 11 aircraft carriers, Judge. We can only, it seems, we can only have one aircraft carrier at a time on station in the Middle East right now. You know, when we invaded Iraq, I think we have four on station, plus almost the entire U.S. Air Force ground-based aircraft were over there as well. So, I mean, this idea that somehow a nation is going to look at this and say, you know, right now we can't go up against the

Americans, but maybe in five years we can, particularly if we can continue to build our own alliances, our own blocks, our own packs, and we continue to work together, maybe in five years from now we'll have one nuclear parity, but then as well, we'll also have an alliance that can stand up to this diminished and debased, I keep using that word today, that debased American empire. How strong, how proficient, how professional is the Turkish military? The Turks have a great reputation for their ferocity. You know, the U.S. Marines fought, and the U.S. Army fought alongside the Turks in Korea in the Korean War in the early 1950s, and that was the reputation that came from the Turks. They are a large professional army.

They are an army that takes itself very seriously, has a long and proud martial tradition. I imagine this extends back to the taking of Constantinople in 1453, that they see themselves as Mehmed's modern day janissaries, possibly. But they are a military that you have to take seriously. And again, once you take away those, particularly, particularly, Judge, if the United States continues to do everything it can to push nations like Turkey away from it. So nations, of course, are scrambling to get away, get away from the American empire because, you know, as one of our favorite quotes, right? Kissinger's quote, dangerous to be America's enemy, deadly to be America's ally. So they're scrambling to get away from us. They're building things like bricks. You're also seeing a willingness out of just exasperation by say the Russians, and this will come from the

Chinese as well, because the Chinese military industrial complex is growing, that the ability of these nations to get weapon systems that are equivalent to the American weapon systems is something that will be available to them in the next five, 10 years in ways that have never been seen before. So maybe it's not right now, but maybe going into the future, this is something going in five years from now, the table is now set for this great regional war that of course could extend into a world war. I'm going to play a particularly troublesome clip from Admiral Kirby on Fox News Sunday this past Sunday. I'd like you to pay careful attention to the last phrase that he uses. It's only about 20 seconds long. But at the very end, he says, one of the reasons we're in Israel

is because of our own, he says it, national security interests. Take a listen. Cut number 13, Chris. We've also been very, very consistent about proving not just with words, but with action that we're going to stand up and defend Israel. I mean, on April 13th, when Iran launched 300 missiles and drones, the United States had aircraft fighter planes in the air to knock them down. We've now added now additional naval and air assets to the region to help defend Israel again. I think we've proven time and time again that we're going to support Israel. Chris, play the next one. When the Supreme Leader says he's going to avenge, we have to take that seriously. Now, I don't know what they're going to do or when they're going to do it, but we got to make

darn sure that we're ready and that we have the capabilities in the region to be able to help Israel defend itself and quite frankly, defend our own people, our own facilities, our own national security interests. Conceivable national security interests as the United States have. It's the opposite. The Israelis are a problem for us internationally, a great problem, a problem that's isolating us and continuing to, it's hastening this assembly of our empire, right? Why Israel is in the interest of the United States as Kirby expresses it, if you were to take that statement and say, how does he get to this point? Other than the fact that it's just the mantra that someone like him and the rest of the officers of the empire have

to repeat and have to believe at some level as well. So they have to delude themselves or they're just those type of people who get in that position anyway. What was the midst of a potentially hostile sea of Arabs. And what happens is that's the Brits' purpose in having that mandate in Palestine, of having their colony there, of controlling it there, of then turning it over to Israel, is that they will have a loyal segment in this, this, this effort of colonization, if you will. And, you know, the idea then is that the Americans, we take over from their empire. So whatever was the British empire's interest now become the American empire's interest. And because of the inertia, because of the corruption, because of the fundamental rot that defines the thought processes behind our empire, that never changes. And of course, with the money involved, with the

relationships that are built, it just self-reinforces generation after generation till you have somebody like Admiral Kirby able to sit there on national television and say something that's just a complete fantasy and people nod and go along with it. You know, Colonel Wilkerson says that he saw a photograph or was told of a huddle after Netanyahu's speech to Congress between the Prime Minister Netanyahu, you ready for this? Senator Lindsey Graham, Senator Tom Cotton, and Senator Josh Hawley. Gee, I wonder what they promised him. Probably whatever the hell he wanted. Right, right. Just having that moment that they didn't have to say anything, right? They could just have that moment being there in each other's presence that communicates everything to them. I mean,

the timing of this, the fact that Netanyahu, I don't think, Judge, any of us predicted this in the sense that we knew Netanyahu was coming. We knew he was going to get his, they're all going to kneel and kiss his ring with a few few exceptions. And then that was going to be the tacit endorsement of a war at some point in the future with Lebanon, as well as to just, OK, whatever. Just finish it up in Gaza. Get this over with. is we've seen this brashness, this boldness, these historical events that I don't think any of us predicted were going to be the result of Netanyahu's successful trip to Israel. We thought it was going to be more mundane, like, okay, just go ahead and have your war in Lebanon.

And now we have seen this. And it achieves Netanyahu's purpose. And he understands that we discussed before the political moment we're in right now in the United States, where we have basically no leadership either because we've got a disabled president and two candidates who don't differ on this at all running for Congress. I mean, for the president. I mean, so his ability to have manufactured this point. And I have to say, though, that this also is congruent with many in Hamas's leadership. So what we're seeing right now where things have aligned, that you have this alliance of nations, this resistance ready to act together, ready to coordinate, all been aggrieved, all ready to go to war against Israel.

The timing of all that, that is exactly what Hamas says they were attempting to achieve with the October 7th attacks. So you look and you see both Benjamin Netanyahu's and Yaya Simwar's ideas, their plans coming to fruition, probably about a 60% overlap in terms of what they want to see come out of this. You know, so, you know, you look at this, you do, you say, my God, we have to be humble, I think, in a degree of what we may be on the verge of, what may be happening, what might have started right now as you and I are talking. Or it may be six weeks from now or six months, or maybe it's six years from now. But we are, I would say, irreversibly on a path towards a regional Middle East war that unless we get some type of exceptional and surprising diplomatic efforts, and this would have to come from the Chinese, I can't imagine anyone else,

maybe the Indians as well, Brazil, but unless we get something like that, some deus ex machina, this is our fate, is to go into this war, and then God help us all. Thank you, Matt. Dangerous times, and I appreciate your sharing your knowledge and your personal courage as we go through all this. We'll see you again next week. All the best, my friend. Thanks, Judge. I value deeply. Coming up at three o'clock Eastern, Karen Kwiatkowski. We'll switch over to Ukraine with her. And at four o'clock Eastern, Professor Jeffrey Sachs. Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom. Thanks for watching!